Hiring a Gym Manager

When running and growing a business (especially a new one), owners may experience struggles when trying to hire a manager for their facility. While many factors go into finding someone, ensuring that you hire the right manager can be pivotal to the overall success of your business. The weight of this position comes from the fact that the gym manager will more than likely become your second in command regarding all things operations, member satisfaction, team leadership, and overall growth. Further, a bad hire for this role can cost you and your business time and money, or even damage your reputation. With this in mind, this blog will aim to help gym owners find the right person for their unique business with some practical, no-fluff considerations.

Know What You Need Before Who - Define Your Role First

Typically, when new/early-stage businesses consider hiring a new (or their first) employee, it’s in response to a direct pain or known issue that they realize they need to fix. Often, this can look like hiring an accountant to help manage finances, or in the case of this blog, hiring a gym manager to help with the daily operations, so you (the owner) can focus on long-term growth and sustainability efforts.

With this in mind, it’s imperative to recognize that every business and every gym is different. Differences come not only from what type of facility it is but also from how it delivers products or services, distinct in the culture/community surrounding the facility, or even in how it presents itself from a branding perspective. Therefore, thoroughly understanding your business plan, growth goals, your “why” statement, and branding persona, you can set yourself up to better define the role you are looking to fill.

Once you understand the role, you can begin to build out your list of responsibilities and measurables. Some common points for this role type include: overseeing daily operations, managing staff scheduling, handling client issues/complaints, tracking key KPIs you’ve identified, or even utilizing your gym management software system. These points will serve as the core competencies list for your job posting - but more importantly, how you will ultimately monitor, manage, and measure this role’s success.

Common Traits of a Great Gym Manager

Once you’ve established the role, duties, and measurables for the job, the next step becomes finding the right person. And this is where things can get a little tricky. Someone who matches your job description to the T with their resume could have a personality or characteristic flaw that doesn’t mesh with your brand or business. Conversely, someone might slightly lack experience on certain role elements; however, their work ethic and charisma match your facility’s perfectly. The goal is to try to find the right person for the role who will be able to grow with you and your business, and comfortably manage your facility to the standards you’ve outlined.

With this concept in mind, here are a few categories to consider when interviewing candidates for your gym manager role:

• People Skills: The manager for your facility will have to communicate often with staff, customers, and even outside vendors. Consider how they carry themselves in conversation, their language, and their ability to adapt to situations or tones of voice throughout your conversations. Additionally, you can ask them to role-play example situations to understand how they would respond, both in verbal response and in actionable steps.
• Organized and Detail-Oriented: While everyone may have their unique styles or preferences when it comes to organization, making sure that a clear understanding of your systems and expectations for organization, documentation, and procedures is critical. Therefore, finding someone who can not only follow your guidelines but also enforce the structure and keep an eye on the details to ensure quality and thoroughness are factored in is pivotal for long-term success.
• Leadership: This category can be difficult to interview for, but there are ways to find out if someone is more of a leader or a manager. When interviewing someone, asking them directly what their management style is like can be one great way to assess this. If someone only talks about scheduling, firing, or interviewing trainers, this may be a sign that they lack strong leadership abilities. However, suppose someone goes into their retention planning, 1-on-1s, and even continuing education or development initiatives with their team. In that case, those can be clear signs that someone is taking more ownership in their team’s success and is willing to lead them to achieve business growth.
• Sales-Drive: Often, managers are in a position to not only oversee the facility but also push forward growth goals and initiatives. While this may or may not look like direct sales in their daily roles, having someone who is always focused on growing the business is vital. The unfortunate truth of the fitness industry is that there is typically a lot of turnover with clients/members (and that can be for various reasons), so having a manager who is also focused on continuous sales growth can help reduce the occurrences of low months by focusing on maximizing revenue potential.
• Tech-Savvy: If you set your business up for long-term success by investing in a robust management software, you can help reduce the headaches, training, and confusion associated with the logging, booking, payment, and documentation side of your business. That said, it is still important to hire someone who knows their way around a computer and your software systems, as they can help troubleshoot one-off situations, reduce customer wait times, and help keep your business operating as smoothly as possible.

Job Posting, Interviewing, and Making an Offer

Once you have defined your gym manager role, the next step is to publish it to start cultivating interest and collecting application submissions. Similar to marketing your business, posting a job requires a bit of finesse to ensure you are getting it in front of the right people while presenting it in a way that comes across as appealing to the right candidates.

So the first step becomes where and how you post your job listing. Your selection options may significantly vary if you plan to hire for a generalist-like position or a more specialized role. For those looking more for general management, depending on your industry knowledge/experience requirements, you may be able to post your job listing on more typical local posting websites and lists. On the other hand, if you are looking for more specific experiences and backgrounds, you may have to consider posting with more strategically aligned job boards, contacting potential candidates directly (via sites like LinkedIn), or hiring a recruiter to help with this process.

As your posting draws interest and candidates start to apply, it’s crucial to review applications and begin considering who you would like to schedule for an interview and who you can quickly close the loop on their application with. It is also recommended to schedule a pre-interview screening call with potential candidates to verify interest, information, details, etc., before extending an in-person/virtual interview offer.

Structure and note-taking are critical in the interview portion of the process, especially if you have multiple candidates you plan to bring in. Consider setting a specific amount of time you would like to allocate for the actual interview (for many, an hour-long session is sufficient) and then building a typical rhythm around that timeline. You may want to do a brief introduction about yourself, your facility, and how you see this role ideally operating within the organization, after which you open the floor for the candidate to discuss their background, strengths, and experiences, and then ending with questions and answers from both sides of the table at the end.

Once you’ve found a candidate you wish to make an offer to, it’s helpful to reach out with a phone call first and reconfirm their interest in the role and re-verify that the details, requirements, pay, etc. of the role make sense for them. Once confirmed, you can make a verbal offer and let them know they can expect the official written offer in their email within a specific time. It can also be beneficial to proactively outline the next steps and any timelines associated with your offer once they accept.

Wrap-Up

Growing your facility and hiring a manager can seem scary or confusing on the surface. But ensuring that you’ve thoroughly considered the aspects of your facility’s needs and how this role will operate within your business can help establish a better foundation for this role to operate within. Additionally, by taking the time to interview properly and pick the right candidate who fulfills the role's needs and aligns with your brand, you establish yourself for long-term success in this role.