THE QUICK READ
• C
lub budgets seldom allow for
monetary bonuses as rewards for
excellent work, so it’s important for
GFMs to make instructors feel valued
through other simple and cost-
effective methods
•
Praise, added responsibility and
small tokens of appreciation like
coffee vouchers and free gym passes
for their friends or family can help
you display appreciation
•
Challenges and competitions that
encourage instructors to grow their
skills and class success can also
involve elements of reward and
recognition
•
Providing the opportunity for
upskilling makes instructors feel
valued, while also increasing the
quality of service they deliver and
their adaptability.
3. Great feedback and upskilling
Recognition can be as simple as saying
‘thank you’ when an instructor helps, or
commending them when they complete
some training or receive some good
feedback. This can be done by taking
photos of feedback forms and posting them
on Facebook.
Communication, staff meetings
and catch-ups
When instructors feel like they don’t know
what is going on around the gym or with
the timetable, it makes them feel like
their opinion doesn’t matter and they are
not valued. Regular communication with
instructors, therefore, is very important.
This can be done by sending out a
weekly email to the instructors and other
gym staff addressing any timetable
changes, promotions, achievements and
other business happening around the gym.
It is important that everyone knows what is
going on in the Group Fitness space and no
one feels neglected.
While Facebook groups provide a great
platform for communication, nothing beats
face-to-face interactions. Regularly catching
up with instructor’s can be quite difficult and
due to clashing timetables and schedules
there will be some instructors the GFM rarely
sees. It is important that the GFM attends
these instructor’s classes once or twice
a year, both to let them know they are not
forgotten and to check that their teaching is
up to scratch.
Other ways of catching up with instructors
include:
1. Staff meetings
These are important for covering items such as
general housekeeping, including timesheets,
batteries,
procedures
and
policies,
qualification updates, introduction of new
instructors, brainstorming for new classes,
discussing launch themes, timetable changes
and general discussion of the latest trends and
research. Staff meetings are a good chance to
get the team together and allow the instructors
to connect with each other.
It is not usually possible to pay instructors
to attend meetings, so their presence is
generally voluntary as well as being subject
to their availability around other work and
life commitments. This makes it even more
important to make staff meetings fun and
52 | NETWORK AUTUMN 2019
beneficial for the whole team. Combining
staff meetings with training, workshops,
social events or catch-up drinks is a good
way of enticing instructors to attend.
2. Casual catch-ups
It is really important for the GFM to make
face-to-face contact with all instructors from
time to time. As well as allowing the GFM
to see how the instructor is doing, this lets
the instructor know they are well supported
and provides an opportunity to discuss any
changes or concerns. A one-on-one catch-
up could just be a quick coffee meeting or a
chat in the staff room.
3. Social events
Once or twice a year, the GFM should
organise a catch-up with the whole team
of instructors. This could include dinner,
movies, bowling, rock climbing or any
activity that appeals to the whole team.
Upskilling
Another important way of showing support
for the group fitness team is for the gym
to host training opportunities for the
instructors. Training could be in the form
of an informal practical brainstorming
session, in-house training run by one of the
more experienced instructors on the team,
or a more formal CEC workshop run by a
professional trainer
Running upskilling opportunities can
be used to either train instructors in a new
program or to fill a gap in the skillset of the
team. Not only does upskilling broaden the
knowledge of team members, it also makes
them more adaptable and improves the
general standard of instructors at your club.
The group fitness team is one of the
most valuable assets of a gym. A cohesive
team which runs like a well-oiled machine
can take the group fitness program from
‘ho-hum’ to ‘wowzers’ and make classes
better than those found at any other
gym. The best way of achieving this is
by having a team which is well informed,
well-educated and feels appreciated.
Kirsty Nield
Over the past 20 years Kirsty has established
herself as one of Australia’s leading group fitness
instructors and educators. A GFM for the past
decade and a fitness presenter since 2012, she is
passionate about mentoring and educating fellow
fitness profession