How many personal trainers to hire at our facility?
We chose to hire trainers as independent contractors at our community rec center. We have four excellent trainers under contract already, but I frequently have other trainers approach me about training here. My loyalty is to my current trainers, and I don’t want to completely saturate our gym with trainers and make it hard for all of them to fill a schedule. The latest argument was that a potential trainer has two of our members he wants to train and if he doesn’t train them here, he’ll take them somewhere else. I am just curious what other managers do – do you limit how many trainers you will hire on? What do you say to those who claim they will take members away? I don’t really want to open our doors to any and everyone so it becomes a free for all. Any tips would be great!
Hi Kelly,
since you have the trainers as independent contractors, you really do not HIRE them but have a contractual agreement that allows them to train at your club. Since they are independent, I am wondering why you are concerned about their ability to fill their schedules. And since you allow some to train, why would you deny others to train there, particularly when there are members of your club who want to be trained by that person. It makes sense to me that that trainer would try to find another place to train them.
I would not necessarily throw open the doors but I do not see what argument you would have if a member approaches you with wanting to be trained by an independent trainer who is not one of the ones who are working at your facility.
If you had personal trainers on staff and no independent trainers at all, that would be a different situation.
Karin Singleton
www.meltnc.com