5 ways to retain your best staff

Over the years of owning or managing your fitness business, you’ve worked hard to build a team of reliable, capable, and (quite frankly) irreplaceable employees. The last two years though have shown that finding and retaining amazing staff is almost impossible across a range of industries, including gyms and leisure centres. There’s a lot of turmoil in the industry, and many quality staff are opting for positions where they can work from home and enjoy a more flexible work lifestyle.

So, with all this in mind, what are some strategies you can implement today to skyrocket your staff retention, and keep those irreplaceable employees for longer?

1.      Recognise and reward

If you have amazing staff, make sure to acknowledge that! Maybe your employee went above and beyond to assist a customer, took initiative to solve a problem in your club, or stayed back late to support the rest of the team? Recognise when any extra effort is put in from your staff and thank or reward them for it. It can be very unmotivating for an employee shows diligence and initiative for your fitness business and their efforts go unnoticed or unappreciated. They don’t need the world delivered to them on a silver platter to feel rewarded either! Sometimes all they need is a simple thank you to feel appreciated and valued.

There are a few ways you could thank them for their time and effort, such as a simple “thank you” at staff meetings, a gesture, like a gift card, time off, more rostered hours on or more responsibility if that’s something they’re eager for. Talk to them and make sure you understand what motivates them!

2. Communicate and listen

If you want to skyrocket retention, be the leader you would want to follow. Be approachable, calm and collected to inspire confidence in your team. If a problem arises, communication is everything and the last thing you will want is a team that is too timid to voice their concerns or opinions to you.

The most important thing you can do to ensure staff happiness is to actively listen and communicate with them. Ask them for their feedback and opinions on the management, procedures in the business and any deterrents that may be impacting their work life. Foster conversations and invest in employee development. You’ll be surprised by the amazing minds you have in your business and the passion to help make the centre a better place for both members and employees alike.

Staff who truly care about you, your business and your customers will provide their honest feedback and give ideas for how things could be better handled. Your people on the ground know better than anyone, and actively listening to their feedback in turn shows that you care, and they are valued.

Likewise, mental health is a very real and impactful thing in your employee’s lives. Being open-minded and accepting of any mental health issues that arise, and being able to compassionately communicate with your staff will set you miles ahead of other employers.

3.      Offer incentives

If you want your employees to stay with your business rather than jumping over to a competitor, you may need to give them something more worth staying for! Maybe you could look at providing a team lunch once a month, access to health perks such as access to sports massage, or rewards for team members who exceed their targets for the month.

Likewise, flexible employers are something employees look for these days. Employees have proven they can effectively work from home, so if you’re in the position to offer staff working from home opportunities, that could be a huge draw-card for attracting and retaining staff.

Some more long-term incentives to consider could be bonuses, extended holidays, more hours, or more responsibility. For your sales team, make sure you have a competitive but fair commission scheme in place to motivate them to drive leads and sales for your business.

4.      Set expectations

When your staff know what’s expected of them, it’s so much easier for them to stay motivated in their role. It’s much easier to set your expectations for the role right from the get-go so your employees understand what is expected of them from their very first day.

Set KPIs so your staff something to benchmark themselves against and give them direction and a goal to work towards. KPI’s and goals give you a clear and measurable idea of an employee’s contribution to your centre. For example, set sales targets for your sales team members. Not only will it give them something to prove how wonderful they are and give them a sense of achievement and success, but it’s also a clear indicator as to how valuable they are to your business.

5.     Provide consistent training

Invest in your staff and provide them with the necessary training to onboard them so they are set up for success. Employees who are given little to no training when starting at a new job are far more likely to leave early on. Likewise, it’s important to make sure your team are all trained the same way with the same knowledge so if one of your most experienced and valued staff members leave, you won’t be left high and dry.

At Jonas Leisure, we’ve built an e-learning platform for our Envibe users to combat this exact problem in the industry. Envibe is a super powerful system, and to get the most out of it, training in all it’s modules and best practices is essential for your business and staff to get the most out of the system. The e-learning platform is filled with both extensive training videos and quick how-to videos, and training manuals to help get new staff onboarded, and refresh existing staff’s knowledge.

To learn more about the e-learning platform, click here to get in touch with us.