Table of Contents
Risk of Liability from trainers and members. 4
Risk Mitigation strategies for disasters. 8
Risk Mitigation strategies for Injury. 8
Risk Mitigation strategies for Emergencies. 9
Risk of Liability from trainers and members. 10
Risk strategy Case study- Health and fitness business
Risk entails the probability of something bad or harmful occurring and its likely consequences. On the other hand, risk management focuses on identifying what could go wrong, where the risks are identified, assessed, prioritized, and then minimized, monitored, and controlled. A risk strategy could also entail enhancing the opportunity potential through applying coordinated and economic resources. Any business requires an effective risk strategy since it lays a foresight for return on investments and projects all the potential backlash a company could face by starting a new endeavor. One of the businesses with a high likelihood of getting prone to risk is the health and fitness business. There is a need to establish effective risk management strategies for the health and fitness industry to minimize or entirely eradicate high-risk cases.
The first major risk associated with a health and fitness center, more so the gym, is the risk of injuries. Many people visiting such a facility are highly likely to come across multiple injuries, especially related to the list or other exercises they have to undertake at such a facility. The majority of the people walking to the gym are also unaware of the proper ways of doing exercise and properly isolating the muscles when exercising(Austin & Mann, 2021).. This hence makes them prone to facing injuries. This aspect increases tissues or bone injuries, leading to either temporary or permanent arm to a muscle or part of the body to the individuals visiting such facility. Most of the accidents at the gyms are avoidable since they only require the members to follow the instructions of the trainer or the gym instructions to prevent any injury. There is also the likelihood of injury in the gym while undertaking normal exercises with the trainer(Austin & Mann, 2021).. The accidents could be due to overstretching, overtraining, or portly exercising, causing harm to the trainees.
Another significant risk faced by the health and fitness industry is the issue of breach of data. Just like many organizations across the globe, it is highly likely for the database of a fitness center to be breached, where private information on members is shared with other third parties. Therefore, such an organization is likely to have negative consequences since it cannot protect what the breachers do with such information (Thomas, et al., 2017). Data privacy for the gym members should be protected at all costs and even insured if there is a cyberattack on the gym members, where they may fall into the wrong hands. This aspect can be avoided by changing the password every day, logging out of the portal every 10 minutes, and applying data encryption software technologies.
There is a probability of the risk of gym members and trainers behaving unethically or against the company’s code of conduct in any health and fitness facility. If any of the parties harass another member at the gym, this is likely to affect the business negatively. This is since this is likely to tarnish the firm’s name and ultimately the brand, limiting the firm from attaining its set goals and objectives. The gym authority will always be blamed for any attitude or behavior a personal trainer has. This can result in court charges that can negatively impact the overall success of the facility. It is the responsibility of the proprietor of the facility to ensure that the trainers are well educated and trained on how to behave and treat the members of the gym or nay facility as a way of limiting such a risk, which poses a considerable threat.
This is a huge risk likely to affect any fitness and health center. There is a likelihood of an emergency, for example, health-related, which would affect gym members and even trainers and affect the entire facility and its authority. An example is the COVID 19 pandemic, which involved multiple health facilities and gyms across the globe, forcing them to shut down for long periods. Another example may include an event of shooting or vandalism, which is likely to adversely affect the entire operations of the gym, forcing it to close for a given time. Such damages prevent the gym management from attaining its full potential, both in training the required revenue and ensuring that the members’ goals on fitness are achieved (Tupa, Simota, & Steiner, 2017). All the damages that come under this category can be prevented by ensuring that the gym facility has emergency event management insurance which can cover all the expenses such as counseling, medical, and funeral costs and save the extra cost which is to be incurred by the gym facility.
Natural disasters are likely to affect any type of business across the globe. Gyms and fitness centers are not safe from such disasters, which are likely to cause property damage and affect humans. There is a massive risk of disasters occurring every day. Such risks are only manageable by establishing a continual plan to accommodate any likely losses that the business will have faced. Examples of natural disasters may include earthquakes, storms, or tsunamis, among many other occurrences, which could have massive damage, and likely bring it to the ground. A disaster such as an earthquake cannot be avoided and can ultimately tear a part and cause severe damage to the facility’s building or even the property inside (Moşteanu, Faccia, & Cavaliere, 2020). It can also lead to the loss of lives to both the employer and employees. Such can be only be managed by striking an agreement with an insurance company so that if in case any natural disaster occurs, the insurance can cover the extra cost the gym had to face.
There is a need to undertake calculations of the risk to identify the highest risks and determine the severity of these risks in the health and fitness industry. The risk score can be calculated by multiplying the probability and impact through other factors such as weighting. However, there will be a qualitative risk assessment for this case. The risk probability characterizes the chance that a particular event is likely to occur during an activity within the health and fitness facility (Willumsen, Oehmen, Stingl, & Geraldi, 2019). In this case, the probability is categorized into five levels, which will include: Very Low, Low, Medium, High, or Very High. However, this may have the challenge of being too ambiguous. The calculations will include:
| Label | Probability range |
| Very Low | 1 in 100 |
| Low | 1 in 10 |
| Medium | 1 in 5 |
| High | 1 in 2 |
| Very High | ≥ 1in 2 |
| Label | Probability | Cost | Schedule | Safety | |
| Disasters | Very Low: | 1 in 100(1) | < 1% | 6 months | Fatality (5) |
| Breach of data | Low: | 1 in 10(2) | 1-5% | 2 months | Non injury accident (2) |
| Liability from trainers | Medium: | 1 in 5(3) | 6-10% | 2 weeks | Non injury accident (2) |
| Emergency | High: | 1 in 2(4) | 11- 20% | 1 week | > 1 day work lost (3) |
| Injury | Very High: | ≥ 1 in 2(5) | > 20% | > 1 day | > Requires medical attention (4) |
Therefore, to calculate risks, then the label will be calculated by the highest impact of the risk:
Risk score = probability x Highest Impact
Thus, disaster risk is 5, a breach of data is 4, Liability to trainers is 6, an emergency is 12, and injury risk is 20. This means that the highest possible risk at the health facility and training center is injury. It is the most common and has the highest probability of happening to individuals. This hence should be given the highest concern by the facilitators of the wellness center to ensure that the members are protected against any likely harm. However, it is also manifest that the other risks also have adverse impacts and should be treated seriously, with suitable mitigation efforts that will ensure that the risks do not negatively impact the gym members, the facilitators, and the owners.
It is manifest that, disasters have little chance of occurrence. However, when they occur, they result in massive dangers that destroy property and likely cause harm to people. Many natural disaster threats are a common issue facing businesses, and most companies are worried about it since they are not in a position (Poljansek, Marín Ferrer, De Groeve, & Clark, 2017). The worry is that it is highly unlikely to predict when and how such disasters will occur.
Therefore, the first mitigation strategy that a health and wellness center can undertake is to insure their firm against such an occurrence. Insurance guarantees that the firm will be compensated once such happens and will not incur significant losses, forcing them to close down. Another primary mitigation strategy that the firm can adopt is a disaster recovery plan since natural disasters can destroy an entire business or location (Moşteanu, Faccia, & Cavaliere, 2020). An example is the 2017 Houston heavy rains that made most companies close down, where most never recovered since they lacked disaster recovery options. A part of the disaster recovery plan is to have a data backup plan for members’ information, which they can easily retrieve after such an occurrence.
Gym facilities are popular endpoints for people seeking to shape up their bodies. Proprietors and operators of these amenities are determined to help their members to better their health. However, some risks occur involuntarily by accident. To best attend to their members, owners of these facilities need to employ a number of mitigating solutions to address specific injury risks associated with their fitness centers. The first most way to mitigate injury risk at the gym is to check and inspect all machines frequently for frayed or loose cables and other reparations (Soos, Balogh, Dobos, Szavai, & Dudra, 2019). Habitually, most fitness enthusiastic do not pay attention to the well-being of gym equipment, thus making it hard to recognize any breakages or malfunction of the machines. What’s worse is that most weights and exercise equipment, if not closely checked properly or used without a spotter, can cause sprains, broken bones, and other types of injuries (Austin & Mann, 2021). So, since machines are used continuously by many members each day, there is a necessity to check equipment for possible malfunction and deterioration quickly due to wear and tear.
To avoid emergencies, a gym facility will need to have an orderly working strategy to alleviate any injury associated with the positioning of machines. A trainer should know when and how to decommission a machine that is not in good working order (Soos, Balogh, Dobos, szavai, & dudra, 2019). For instance, Equipment such as a treadmill should purposefully be placed to minimize the likelihood of a gym member stumbling on it. In addition, gym members should be trained on proper handling of equipment, and their workout area monitored for intervention should risky behavior detected.
As a result of the paradigm shift in technology, data breaches have become a common challenge facing most businesses. Therefore, to mitigate such a risk, there will be a need for gyms and other training facilities to ensure that their data is protected to prevent loss or theft. First, there is a need for a firm to have up-to-date software, which will help in avoiding weak spots for hackers to exploit. There is also a need for regular risk assessments to review and address any changes or new risks in data protection (Thomas, et al., 2017). A firm needs to consider all sectors, such as data storage and remote access for its employees. This can also be made possible by ensuring adequate policies and procedures for a facility to protect the members’ personal information.
Another mitigation strategy for breaches of data is encryption and data backup. There is a need for each individual data to be encrypted, including personal devices used by the employees at a facility. This will make it hard for attackers and any other third party to access the company information. Staff training and awareness are also vital in mitigating the risks. It will enable the workers to follow best practices, be aware of the importance of data security, and learn how to avoid mistakes that could lead to breaches (Thomas, et al., 2017). There is a need for any given health and fitness firm to make staff training and development on data breaches a part of its company culture.
To mitigate the risk of Liability from training and members, there is a need to ensure that a fitness center has exhaustively written policies and procedures that all members and trainers should abide by. The company also needs to have a code of conduct, which all the employees should follow the later as a part of their contract before joining the facility. This will help minimize indiscipline or irresponsibility among the staff or even among the gym members. A continuous review of the policies and procedures and the code of conduct will help ensure that every stakeholder within the facility is reminded of their mandate and responsibility every time they step into the gym facility. Training and course workshops will also be vital in minimizing such a risk and ensuring that every member is aware of what he/she is required to do when at the health and fitness facility without breaking any rules.
Organizations in all industries and disciplines need to have well-laid risk management structures in place. This is vital in that it helps control and reduce the impacts of risks to the organizations since such risks pose threats that can lead to failure by these firms to attain their set goals and objectives. The selected industry for the research paper was the health and fitness industry. Many people in the current times have enrolled or tried to engage a fitness center to keep fit through exercise. Gyms and fitness centers are also prone to threats. Some of the possible risks included injuries, emergencies, breach of data, disasters, and Liability from trainers and members from the paper. All the five risks can be mitigated, where for breach of data, the most suitable way is to have structures in place and training for staff members to protect them against any current or future attacks. For Liability from trainers and members, there is a need to have a firm policy and procedures and a code of conduct for each party to follow. Finally, companies will need to have a disaster recovery plan for disasters, which can incorporate having insurance to ensure that future incidents are taken care of to ensure that affirm services even after any such bad incident.
