How to manage and motivate your trainers
Having a strong team dynamic and bond is absolutely crucial to the success of your fitness studio. Although it is a job for them and they are expected to show up and give their best, we all know how tiring and stressful it can be to have a service based job where you are required to give your clients your best effort each time. If your trainers start to lose motivation or enjoyment, it will inevitably lead to worse customer experiences and an overall downer in the atmosphere of your fitness studio. Which is why in this blog today, we will be going over some ways you can manage and motivate your trainers so your fitness studio can thrive.
Organise gatherings and bonding events
- Informal setting: This could be in the form of casual meals or breaks for drinks in between work. It gets you to interact with your trainers in a more casual and natural setting to build a relationship outside of work, subconsciously when you have better relationship with your co workers, work becomes more enjoyable and less like “work”. This helps the overall vibe of your work environment.
- Team building events: This is not necessary by any means, but can be done occasionally to bring out a more fun aspect of work and help build an informal and playful relationship with your co workers to make the team feel more bonded. This could be in the form of going out for games like laser tag or bowling, or even dinner and drinks. Helping your team feel more bonded and giving them a sense of placement in your business.
Set goals with incentives
- Clear Objectives: This might sound cliche, but it is absolutely true. Without proper targets or goals to hit, there wouldn’t be much of a reason for your trainers to put in extra effort into work. So you could set weekly or monthly goals such as class attendance, client retention or client feedback.
- Give incentives: You can incentivise them with a commission or percentage for each student that comes to class. This will help raise the spirits and enthusiasm in work attitude of your trainers, to ensure a positive experience for your clients so they come back. You can also give bonuses, professional development opportunities or other forms of recognition you deem fit.
Leading openly with trust
- Open communication : You could have check ins every week or month, where you and your trainers have a 1 on 1 or in group settings give each other open and honest feedback, aside from giving and receiving constructive criticism, this helps build trust with your trainers and improves the relationship you guys have knowing you are comfortable with open and honest communication.
- Giving autonomy: This is a tricky one, on one hand you must maintain a certain level of control, but you also want to have motivated trainers. But this doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive, here is how you can achieve both. You can lead them more autonomously, what I mean by that is you can give them the freedom to plan their schedule, but with your approval. This will give your trainers more freedom and flexibility, reducing the risk of burnout and having them dread work . This also improves the relationship with your trainers as they will feel a sense of trust and respect that you have given them, helping them to feel more motivated. You could also give them the freedom to be creative in their teaching styles and how they would like to conduct lessons, allowing them to feel more involved in the fitness studio.
Takeaways
Leading and running your fitness studio is no doubt challenging, and I am sure by now you have figured out that there is no guide to doing so and that you learn how to manage people best through experience. Hopefully this blog has given you some new perspective on how you could better lead and manage your fitness studio.
This article was written by Zane Phua.