Fitness Center Employee Retention - Set the Right Tone

When your employee retention rate is as high as possible, it keeps the work and the cost down and it will also reflect in your levels of membership retention too. Hiring gym staff can be like jumping on a treadmill that’s reeled up to eleven; it’s hard work that takes all your time and another expense to cut into your bottom line if you have to keep doing it.

The reason why you have employees is to have reliable and capable agents, so you can go home, relax, and sleep soundly at night, leaving them in charge. It is enough hard work and expense to find them that one initial first time.

What Not To Do

You may have heard that the rideshare company Uber has been having some employee problems. It seems that Uber allowed discrimination that caused female employees to feel blocked and undervalued and they tended not to stick around for long. It’s not like there are too many software developers fighting for a few jobs, trust us, hiring talented female programmers is more than just a cultural issue it helps fill critical positions.

Diversity also helps to create the right environment to attract and retain your customers as much as your workers, in retail operations like gyms. Listening to feedback from employees is a simple thing you can do to prevent high employee turnover. When you take action in response to concerning information it’s not just a good policy, it’s good business.

Leadership And Listening in the Fitness Business

Undoubtedly, gyms are much different from the tech industry, but we all need to be attentive in forming and implementing policies that are good for our businesses as well as employees and customers. After all, these three elements are more than a little connected, right?

As a fitness club owner, you are the one who has to handle toxic workplace matters. Now, you may or may not have serious problems. In any case, the only way to consistently hold on to your employees is to have a process that goes from beginning to end of the cycle for all stages of the relationship they have with your gym.

Better Employee Retention Equals Retaining Your Members 

Retaining your actual gym employees is not so different from keeping your customers longer. You can expect that there is some overlap of the factors that make gym staff happy that keeps customers contented. That is a valuable point because it means that how you retain one can improve retention for the other.

You may suffer some losses along the way, particularly in the early stages, but you can apply everything that you learn and use it to hold fast to your people in the long run. The changes you make due to feedback from leaving staff and the way you change your business could make a remarkable improvement in your employee retention. A refocused and motivated team will shift gears, increase its performance, and the change will rub off on your customers too.

Strong Onboarding From The Start

An orientation process and package for new members in a necessity, just as it is for new employees.  This needs to be more than reviewing paperwork and signing forms. The start of your working relationship is the best time to establish the tone and meaning of your relationship, explain your expectations, and define the boundaries. Take an interest in which they are and show that you care about their lives and who they are as people.

Before Trouble Starts, Build Up Morale

Providing a competitive benefits package for your employees can help as long as you stay within the ballpark levels of the local job market.  Usually, people don’t leave because of the money. The chance to be part of something is a great motivator for workers; they want the sense that they count and that the future will bring advancement. Engagement like this may be tough to deliver directly, as a small business owner, but you can turn the need for growth into fuel to drive the business ahead.

When Resignations Happen; Respond Proactively 

When one of your employees voices their desire to leave, find out why, if you can. The hope should be that you could sell them on staying once you understand their motivations. Don’t take all the heat yourself; if your company is growing or you have established two or more locations, maybe it’s time to hire a human resources manager who has the certifications and experience to take charge and develop your people.

Operating and owning a small fitness business is hard enough without dealing with endless recruiting for either members or employees. If you master the basics of employee retention, you can keep both time and expense, at a minimum. Having staff that sticks around longer will give you more time to work on making your business better, and hopefully, it will help you feel a little bit saner on a daily basis too.