Provided by Active Wellness Vice President of Human Resources Meredith DePersia
If you’re going to have a successful fitness center, you need a knowledgeable and enthusiastic team of employees working in your center. Like any business, a fitness center relies on customer satisfaction to survive and thrive, and customer satisfaction ultimately comes down to good customer service.
Your employees may be providing fitness instruction or scheduling clients for yoga classes, but that’s still customer service, and if they do a good job, your clients will remain loyal to your business. Here some tips for recruiting a highly successful fitness center team.
1. Know Where To Look
One important key to finding the employees you want is knowing where the employees that you want might be. Are you looking for young, healthy, fit people for entry-level positions? If so, you should be looking at the local universities, colleges, and community colleges.
This is a great place to find just the kind of employee that you’re looking for. You could post an ad on the college job board to find candidates who might be interested in working the service desk or behind the counter of your juice bar.
Looking for swimming instructors or lifeguards? Contact the school’s swim coach. Looking for staff for the fitness center child care? Check with the child development or early childhood education departments.
On the other hand, if you’re looking for students with specific certifications, make sure you contact agencies that grant those certifications. There are a number of online schools that offer personal training certificates, for example, and many also offer job placement assistance for their students. Contact those schools and find out how you can have certificate recipients placed in your business. Post ads on forums and job boards aimed at those working or looking for work in the fitness field.
2. Know The Job
Before you begin hiring, it’s a good idea to sit down and create a job description. That way, not only will you be able to explain exactly what you’re looking for, you’ll also have a written checklist so that you can compare it with the resumes and applications you get. By doing this, you can be sure that you’re hiring someone who can actually do the job.
This means you’ll need to have an exact idea of what you expect specific employees to be able to do. Do you want trainers who can also give nutrition advice? Then you need to look for resumes that specify the trainer has experience or knowledge in that area.
Making a specific list of job duties and relevant qualifications not only lets potential applicants know whether they should apply, it also helps you weed out applicants who don’t meet your standards early in the process, saving both you and the applicant some time.
3. Offer Competitive Compensation
If you want to hire employees that are at the top of their game, you need to make sure that you’re offering competitive compensation. Do some research so that you know what comparable businesses in the area are offering. That way, you’ll get a baseline idea of what your potential employees are looking for.
Don’t be afraid to get creative with the compensation. Money isn’t the only thing that employees are looking for. If you can’t offer the same salary as a competitor, you may still be able to attract top employees by offering something else, like flexible scheduling or complimentary childcare.
Active Wellness is dedicated to helping people live the best lives possible, and we’re always looking for individuals that are passionate like us to join Team Active. Learn more at www.activewellness.com/careers
Originally printed on the Active Wellness blog. Reprinted with permission.
