® always want double coverage, or are times with single coverage adequate to service the members?
You should consider how you use your club manager and assistant manager. Do they overlap shifts, or do they work entirely different schedules? You should consider the systems and tasks that run the business. When does the club hire and train? When does the club complete inventory and place orders? Who is responsible for leadership when the club manager is not present? All those considerations will help you build – and maintain – a schedule that maximizes value while generating the potential for revenue.
Deciding what you want to get out of the schedule can be difficult. Taking a measured approach to scheduling can assist your club in meeting its potential over time. You may choose to have a schedule that is more staff-heavy, with more overlapping shifts, when the club is its first 6-9 months of opening. As the club grows and settles into its growth pattern you may choose to reduce shifts or reposition shifts to meet the membership trends. If competition comes to your area, you may choose to staff heavier or even increase your hours of operation.
Time of the year can also be a factor. We now have multiple“ peak” periods when you consider High School Summer Pass and the New Years joins. Adjusting schedules accordingly can help you retain members while not diminishing services. However, if you focus too hard on any one metric for building the schedule, you may leave yourself long on people or short on profitability. In any of those cases, being flexible and evaluating the trends will help you meet your scheduling goals.
One method for building the schedule is setting a budget for staffing that uses a percentage of monthly billing as a benchmark. With this approach, clubs with smaller EFTs would have available staffing that is in line with the profitability of a club with a larger EFT. With this approach, you will need to factor in the average wage and know the total number of operating hours. This may lead to clubs with smaller monthly billings having schedules that are not 24 hours. Depending on your region of the country, your real estate and your competition, this could be the right methodology to maximize profits, especially in a lower volume location. While this approach is bottom line facing, it can leave the club in danger of not having enough team members to meet the members’ needs. I would suggest that this approach needs the most maintenance as the factors in setting the budget can change over time, especially month to month.
Another approach to building the schedule could be to decide how many staff you need to service member check-ins. In this approach, you are trying to have staff at the time of demand by evaluating the trends of the times members are present. In this case, you would need more staff on the shift during your peak periods, mornings before typical“ work hours,” midday“ lunch breaks,” and especially after work when a typical Planet Fitness sees the most check-ins by hour.
How you decide the number of members one staff can effectively service is a subjective matter. A member check-in with no account issues takes, arguably, 15 seconds. One staff member could check in four members per minute, or 240 members per hour. In that brief scenario you may only need one staff member at the front desk for that hour. That may not leave time for that specific staff member to leave the desk to clean or assist a member on the gym floor. The calculation gets murkier when you factor in members with account issues, tours and walk arounds, and general member issues. The upside to this staffing idea is that when you find the right balance, you are staffing the club to build member retention and maximize growth.
Scheduling can start to feel like the intersection of practicality and philosophical ideology. You want to run a profitable club, but you want to provide an over-the-top member experience. A hybrid approach may be what you are looking for. Budgeting does not have to be monetary. Instead of looking at the total dollars spent, you can look at the hours allotted for the day or month. There are clear differences between Monday and Friday in terms of usage and staff productivity. Your club managers can make their allotted hours go further by spreading them out over the weekly schedule while not missing out on the opportunities for growth that our busy periods allow us.
Members who are better serviced tell their friends about their positive experience, leading to more potential members. The club manager will still need to consider your company’ s principles regarding staffing coverage, but it will allow them to schedule for need without compromising service. Completing schedules weekly and posting them timely will allow for flexibility as busy times fluctuate throughout the year.
Building a schedule that works is no easy task. It is an art and skill. It is forward thinking and deep evaluation. It requires an understanding of multiple successful factors for the business and how all the systems work together. While there is not one“ right” schedule, if you are not evaluating the schedule right now, you are missing your opportunity for profitability. G
Brian Cassagio is a partner for Grand Fitness Partners. He may be reached at brian @ pcvholdco. com.
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GearedUp | 2025 Issue 3
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