Grievance Committees in Private Clubs

Dear Dr. Merritt--

Greetings, Sir. I am a General Manager at a private club. I attended your leadership and strategy seminar in San Francisco and am making an effort to share your thoughts about 'members managing members, staff managing staff' with my Board. They've requested more info about Grievance Committee best practices.

Steven S.


Steven,

There is not much written on private club Grievance Committees and how they work. Here is a reprint from a report that I did for another private club board that will give you a better idea as to how the concept works. You will notice that this club referred to theirs as a Discipline Committee (but it is the same as a Grievance Committee in other private clubs):

The paid staff manages paid staff while the board must manage the member owners. Get involved in managing the members. The GM and his leadership team should manage the paid staff, while the board should manage the members. The paid staff simply cannot be expected to manage the owners!

There are many situations which occur at clubs with members getting feisty and out of line. I will give you a typical for example. While at the club, I was bombarded by written notices posted around the club and in the sleeping rooms outlining the dress code. I was verbally reminded of the dress code on at least eight occasions. Yet, I was always wearing a jacket and tie. This overreaction suggests that the club is having difficulties with certain members and/or their guests—probably represented by younger members with children at home—who do not agree with the policy. While this is fairly normal occurrence for clubs, the paid staff is dealing with the situation in an improper manner. The difficult members are not going to respond just with one additional reminder.

Assuming the club is set on these dress code policies (even though this will likely change as the younger members assume leadership roles at the club), has agreement from the membership, and posts and reinforces the policy in the magazine, violating members would simply be reminded of the policy by the staff and offered a loaner jacket. If the member refused and insisted on violating the rule, the staff should allow the violation (again, the paid staff is dealing with an owner!). From there, the violation would be reported up by the GM anonymously to the designated discipline committee (which, operates under your board secretary, and other than the membership committee is typically the only other secret committee at the club).

The discipline committee exists, but I sense from comments that it may not function effectively. Under this plan the discipline committee would be more pro-active in handling member issues. They would receive a write-up of the incident without the member’s name being disclosed (to help the committee make a fair ruling and recommendation without being influenced by any particular individual). The committee would make a written recommendation to the board that would accept, adjust, or reject the recommendation, and communicate with the violating member. Often times, before taking strong action, the board would invite the offending member in to get his or her side of the story.

In the end, the issues of discipline would be covered—again without mentioning names—in the magazine to reinforce the rules and to assure the rules-following members that the club is watching out for their best interests.

Currently, the staff appears to be handling these issues. For obvious reasons, they do not get handled effectively. The majority of the members are rules followers. However, rules followers watch to see what happens and become disgusted when rules-breaking members are allowed to bully their way through situations.

I hope that this information helps.
My best wishes,
-Ed Merritt