Beth Taska is the EVP of Human Resources for 24 Hour Fitness, which was founded in 1979 and has over 400+ locations and over 23,000 employees serving 4 million club members.  She has held the CHRO (Chief HR Officer) title and Senior HR positions for corporations such as Clearwire, Gap and Sears.  Beth’s career path was not of the norm, she holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science and a graduate degree in Public Administration and worked for several municipalities around the Chicago area before beginning her career in the HR world. 

The CHRO role at 24 Hour Fitness includes onboarding over 17,000 people each year from the very inception when someone begins with 24 Hour Fitness and training these people.  There is a duality with recruitment here because there is a large part of the 24 Hour Fitness workforce that uses their position as a stepping stone and part of the workforce includes people that want a longer tenure with the company.  24 Hour Fitness practices relationship based leadership and practices positivity and making a difference in some fashion with their members and their employees. 

In this episode Beth will discuss the differences that relationship based leadership can make within an organization and how that affects employees.  What true leadership is and where it comes from, some of the simplest behaviors can make the largest impacts on an individual which in turn can make large impacts for an organization.  How doing a 5 minute “Gratitude Circle” first thing each morning with everyone sets the positive tone for the work day ahead.  What 24 Hour Fitness strives for each of their members with relationship based selling and how they turn that into a positive for their bottom line.  How they deal with having mostly female members versus male employees.  Beth discusses all of these things and explains the impact that being vulnerable makes for everyone within an organization and how to be vulnerable.

 

What you will learn in this episode:

• Beth’s story
• What is Relationship Based Leadership?
• What is Relationship Based Selling?
• Four traits that leaders should have.
• How to work with employees want a long tenure and employees that want a short tenure.
• How to bring vulnerability to the workplace
• Are work families a good thing or not what, exactly what is a work family.
• Why it’s important for leadership to be viewed as human versus mechanical

Links from the episode:

Beth Taska On LinkedIn

BethTaska.club

(Music by Ronald Jenkees)