Finding the Perfect Staff for Your Facility

Your staff are the heart and soul of your facility. From your personal trainers to your front desk workers, having a friendly, motivated staff can make or break your long-term membership development. To find the perfect staff, you must clearly define your ideal candidate. Ideally, they should bring a positive attitude, strong communication skills, be personable, have a passion for fitness (preferred), express your values and create an environment in which members thrive. 

Sounds easy right? Wrong. Hiring can be a hit or miss... with a miss potentially being one of the costliest decisions a gym owner can make. A bad hire can damage relationships with members and waste energy, time, and resources. That is why it is crucial to implement a strategy when hiring your staff to make your life easier and business continue to flow in a positive direction. In this post, we will discuss procedures and strategies you can take to find the best staff for your fitness facility. 

Step 1: Designing Roles and Responsibilities: 

Before your hiring process, it’s important to delegate which positions you want to hire along with their specific roles and duties. From there, you can begin to fill those roles. It may take months to years until you get all these roles filled. However, the most important thing is to have a vision of what your organization will look like and create a plan to offload your own duties. 

Types of Positions:

1. Front Desk Staff 
2. Head Coach/ Trainers Group Exercise Instructors 
3. Cleaning Staff Membership/ Sales Manager + Team 
4. General Manager

Step 2: Attracting the Right Candidates 

To find the best staff for your gym, you must look for candidates with a positive attitude, strong communication skills, a passion for fitness (preferred by not required), strong work ethic, and a good fit for your culture. 

1. Where to Find Candidates: 
2. Current members
3. Social media 
4. Local fitness communities
5. Job boards  Local colleges and universities

Step 3: Hiring 

When hiring, it’s important to have clear and precise job descriptions. This will ensure the applicant knows exactly what kind of role they are applying for. A clear job description will outline the role responsibilities, required certifications and desired skill needed for the position. 

When conducting the interview process, make sure the interview questions are targeted and assess the candidate’s knowledge, experience, and personality. It’s important to take your time and not rush the hiring process. Rushing could lead to you settling for someone who may not provide the necessary tools you’re looking for. As mentioned above, bad hires can be costly. 

Step 4: Developing Leaders 

As you continue to grow your gym, you’re going to need to develop leaders within your team to ensure everyone is abiding by the standards, values, and culture of your facility. Every team member on your staff should be assessed and supported with a formal growth plan. You want to celebrate their strengths and identify areas of growth. Building and developing a strong gym team will unlock more growth for your business more than anything else. By investing in the development and well-being of your team, you can create loyalty, reduce turnover, and position your gym as an employer of choice in the industry. 

Step 5: Retaining the Best People 

Hiring staff is expensive and time consuming. While it’s hard enough to bring in great staff members, it’s even harder to keep them on board. Keeping hold of the best people makes your lift a whole lot easier. So how do we do it? 

Listening: 

One of the main reasons employees look to leave their job is they don’t understand why what they do matters. As their leader, it is crucial that you show them continuously why they are an important part of your facility.  Make them part of your planning sessions, listen to their feedback, and make sure they’re involved in setting targets. Ask for ideas and feedback, and act on their suggestions where appropriate.

If your people believe they have a say in the way things are run, they’ll feel like an integral part of the team, and they’ll want to keep contributing.

Praise

Make sure they always know how they’re performing. We all like to know our hard work is valued. So, recognize and reward all that hard work your team does every single day. Incentives such as free drinks, gift cards, or a staff party can all help, but don’t underestimate the power of a thank you for a job well done.

Invest

Help your gym staff progress in their careers and develop professionally with the right training. That might mean supporting them to work towards qualifications and helping them take part in continuous professional development. This can not only motivate your staff on becoming better employees, but also shows you care about their professional development and want them to succeed. Whether their future career goals include your gym or not, you have a better chance of bringing out the best in your employees while they’re with you if you invest in them. 

Conclusion:

As a gym owner or manager, one of your top priorities should be to hire amazing staff members who will contribute to the success of your business. The right team can make all the difference in creating a positive and motivating environment for your members. By clearly defining the necessary roles and responsibilities, using the right avenues to attract the right applicants, creating an in-dept hiring process and implementing strategies for staff development, you can create a well-rounded team of employees who make your business thrive.