Life Time Fitness Fires Personal Trainer Over a Tweet
Tue, Nov 22, 2011
Life Time Fitness made a bold move today firing a local personal trainer for a tweet he sent November 6 mocking the irony of an employees lunch choice on the job. Grant Hill, founder of MyBootcamp, has been leading a popular (always packed) spinning class weekly at the Rockville location for three years now.
Departing the gym one day Grant identified a McDonald’s bag sitting on an employees desk in an area viewable to the public. A quick twitpic sent the evidence to the blogosphere with Grants remarks: “A McDonalds bag sits on an employees desk @lifetimefitness aka “the healthy way of life company.” Ah the irony. http://pic.twitter.com/k6EtliXy“. Now, let’s take a look at Life Time’s mission as defined on their own website:
We believe living healthy is the only way of life. Where the effects of aging can stop dead in its tracks. And getting fit can be fun. We’ll nourish our bodies as well as our minds. We believe in respecting ourselves and protecting the planet. This is our life. And we love living it well.
We need not get into the debate on McDonalds offerings of so-called healthy food — which was one of the remarks made in their defense when they asked Grant to remove the tweet — that’s an absurd waste of time. The larger question here is whether they have the right to fire Grant over this tweet? Let’s look at the role social media played before, during, and after.
Before:
@GrantHillFit has gathered 370 followers on Twitter and identifies himself as “Primal fitness/nutrition guru. Founder of MyBootcamp. Lover of bacon. Hater of gyms. Bucking conventional wisdom one client at a time. Also, published musician.” His profile links to his own personal company website and speaks nothing of his affiliation to Life Time Fitness.
Does this make a difference? You betcha. If Grant was representing Life Time Fitness, online, in a professional capacity then they may have some ground to stand on — if a social media policy was in place. Grant states that the Rockville location General Manager, Joel Schlossberg, refused to acknowledge his question on the existence on such policy.
During:
The initial tweet was ignored by @LifeTimeFitness on Twitter and the first response he received was via email November 7. Group Fitness Manager, Mona Fischer, wrote:
Grant,
Joel was contacted by corporate regarding a tweet you posted about Life Time. While your point was made, McDonald’s like many fast food establishments, have been taking steps to provide healthier alternatives…we just don’t know what was in the bag. Life Time has and will continue to educate Team Members as to Healthy Way of Life behaviors. We will also continue to remind Team Members that outside food should be removed from any branded packaging before it is brought into the club.
Happy to have you as a Team Member who supports and encourages a Healthy Way of Life to all of our members. At this time, we would like to request that you please remove the tweet.
Yours in health,
Mona
I personally bolded the parts that provided me the most entertainment.
Grant’s public statement on his Facebook profile sums it up well: “Instead of engaging in a healthy discussion in a public forum that would have driven awareness to millions on the dangers of fast food, they tried to censor it.”
After:
Today Grant was fired for “insubordination” and took to Twitter and Facebook to gather support. In the first hour over 80 tweets have been written with overwhelming support for Grant and signs of disgust all targeted at @LifeTimeFitness. If I ran that handle I’d be slapping myself right now…perhaps a simple “ah shucks, busted in a moment of weakness Grant” reply to the original tweet might have saved someone their job and a club the negative PR.
Social media platforms can be used to put out fires, not just start them. Had this been addressed and acknowledged in public — on the platform it was initiated on — it would never have come to this, a poor result for all involved. Right now Life Time Fitness is trending in DC, and not for the right reason!
@LifeTimeKJ, the public relations manager for Life Time Fitness, has just tweeted:
All – I can confirm that this is a former team member. And, while @lifetimefitness has in place a social media policy, I can further confirm that his separation was not due to a social media action. Rather, he violated our company code of conduct, specifically by operating a business that was in violation of our conflict of interest policy.
Maybe KJ didn’t receive the same email Grant did? For an employee that has worked with Life Time Fitness for three years, as a spinning instructor filling weekly classes to capacity, why suddenly now is he being fired for reasons never addressed before? Not before this tweet…
Grant was fired over the phone with the words “we have to part ways professionally because your response to our request to remove the tweet was insubordinate, and we also believe that MyBootcamp is in violation of our non-compete clause.” Per Grant Hill he has never signed a non-compete clause as group instructors are not required to.
What say you? Should Grant have been fired? Did they have the right to demand the tweet be removed?
UPDATE 11.22.11 @ 8:00 PM: The Washington Post has also featured this story on their Capital Business Blog “Instructor says gym fired him after tweet about co-worker eating fast food” by Steven Overly
UPDATE 11.23.11 @ 10:30 AM: Read Grant’s official reply and explanation on our shared blog, The Trainer and The Client.
Disclaimer: Grant is MY personal Trainer, a good friend, and a fellow entrepreneur I admire.
Comments
Tags: fired for tweet, grant hill, lifetime fitness, mybootcamp
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[...] We need not get into the debate on McDonalds offerings of so-called healthy food — which was one of the remarks made in their defense when they asked Grant to remove the tweet — that’s an absurd waste of time. The larger question here is whether they have the right to fire Grant over this tweet? Let’s look at the role social media played before, during, and after. Life Time Fitness Fires Personal Trainer Over a Tweet | Lisa Byrne [...]