Gym Staffing: Where to Find Help Before You Hire Full-Time

Somewhere between “I’ll just do this myself” and “I need to hire someone full-time,” there’s a whole menu of gym staffing options most fitness business owners never consider.

The reason it’s important to explore the options in the gap is that fixing a bad hire isn’t easy or cheap. In fact, the U.S. Department of Labor puts the average cost of a bad hire at 30 percent of that employee’s first-year earnings. And that’s before you count the time spent retraining, or the classes you might have to cover yourself while you begin the search again.

Before you post a job listing for your next full-time coach, general manager or any other staff hiring, it’s worth working through the other ways to get help first. Let’s take a look at the options.

4 Quick Gym Staffing Options to Consider Before a Full-Time Hire

​Here are four ways you can avoid starting with a full-time hire, in order from the quickest and lowest-risk solution to the most involved.

​Want the full playbook? Grab How to Build a Team That Doesn’t Need You for Everything free. It walks through exactly what to hand off, who should handle it, and when a full-time hire is actually worth it.

1. Start with the staff you already have.

Before you begin searching for help outside the four walls of your fitness business, take a look at the people who are already on your payroll. Is there a part-time coach who wants more hours? Or perhaps a salaried coach with some room in their week could absorb the tasks you’re trying to cover. Your current staff already knows your systems, members, and standards. Which could also means minimal ramp-up time and no guessing whether they’re a culture fit for your next gym staffing hire.

2. Consider a client with the right skill.

Take a look at your current list of clients and cross-reference their known skills with the ones you’re looking to hire for. Common examples could be things like bookkeeping, social media, or cleaning. If they have the skill and the willingness, it could work well for both sides. Your client already likes your fitness business, and you already have some sense of who they are as a person.

With that in mind, don’t skip the evaluation just because they’re a familiar face though. Have them complete the same vetting process you would for any other gym staffing. Remember, a friendly client isn’t automatically a good fit for a paid role, and a bad outcome could cost you a membership, so take the time to do it right.

​Not sure how to vet them fairly? The free “How to Build a Team That Doesn’t Need You for Everything” guide includes the People Analyzer worksheet. It’s the perfect tool for scoring whether someone (client or not) is actually the right fit before you hand them a paycheck.

3. Bring in a virtual assistant for simple gym staffing needs.

Virtual assistants are typically offshore and lower cost, which makes them a solid option for high-volume, repeatable work like data entry and routine scheduling. Offshore VA rates commonly land somewhere between $12 and $25 per hour, depending on where they’re based and the platform you use to find them. The primary tradeoff is oversight, meaning VAs need more direction and clearer instructions than someone who’s worked alongside you in your fitness business for years.

4. Explore a remote executive assistant.

A remote executive assistant comes at a higher gym staffing cost than a VA, but they can handle work that requires decisions instead of just checklists. For example, if you’re looking for help researching health insurance options or managing an insurance claim after a burst pipe, a VA won’t fit the ask. If the task needs someone to think it through rather than just follow instructions, a remote executive assistant is usually the better fit. Plus, the higher rate often pays for itself in what you no longer have to carry yourself.

Save a Full-Time Hire for When You Need the Capacity

If you’re truly trying to go from coach to CEO at your fitness studio, sometimes you really do need dedicated capacity: another coach, or your next general manager. When that’s true, a full-time hire is the right call. But even a small amount of outsourced help first, five hours a week here, three there, can free up enough time that the need for a full-time role becomes obvious instead of a guess. You’re far more likely to hire well when you know exactly what the job needs to cover.

Gym Staffing: Match the Help to the Task

The reality is, most fitness business owners don’t get tripped up by picking the wrong gym staffing option. Instead, things usually go sideways if you skip straight to a full-time job posting without considering the alternatives. So if you can match the type of help you need to what the task actually requires, you can spend less money and make fewer hiring mistakes along the way.

If you’re ready to figure out exactly what to hand off first and how to build the right structure around it, we’ve got you covered. “How to Build a Team That Doesn’t Need You for Everything” is a free guide that walks you through the full framework, plus the hiring playbook for when a full-time role really is the answer.

Oh, and don’t forget to check out the webinar! Wodify’s Grace Bettino and Business For Unicorns founder Mark Fisher recently led the Get Out of the Way: How to Build a Team That Doesn’t Need You for Everything webinar.