Using Club Management Software to Achieve Employee Balance

Club Solutions - October, 2006

In my September editorial, I discussed ways to expand the use of your club management system beyond your personal training department, with a goal of maximizing the Return On Investment (ROI) received from this valuable business tool. We discussed that the best way to accomplish this was by ensuring that a system can provide both breadth and repeatability for your club. “Breadth” relates to the number of employees that are affected by the system. “Repeatability” refers to the number of times during the day, and for multiple functions, a product is used and relied on by your team.

In this month’s article, I would like to focus on the ways a club management system can help achieve employee balance, organization and stress reduction. One of the most beneficial aspects of club management software is that it can work to increase employee productivity as well as benefit the overall success and profitability of your fitness center. Club Software with personal trainer scheduling allows a trainer, class instructor, or therapist to accomplish more work with less effort; thereby reducing the time required for the organizational tasks and requirements associated with client sessions, classes and therapeutic services.

Club management software with personal trainer scheduling shows where your trainers are losing time and productivity on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. It can help pinpoint downtime and show where to make better use of time to accomplish other tasks involved with their jobs. A detailed club software system offers a suite of tools and functionality that allows your team to prevent time and productivity losses of even just a few minutes here and there.

Here is a straightforward and simple example that can save three or four minutes in between each trainer’s individual client sessions:

1. By printing a Daily Trainer Schedule Report from the club management system and providing it to trainers, along with their client charts, each of them will know, in advance, with whom the next client session is, how long each session is, and even how many sessions the client has left in their package – all without having to waste a few minutes of time gathering information at the front desk after each session.

2. By using this same Daily Schedule Report to mark and track the attendance of their clients, your trainers can remain on the floor without having to go back and forth between sessions to manage paperwork – and, potentially interfacing with other clients, or staff, taking additional time away from their predefined schedule.

Each day, the prevention of seemingly small losses of time adds up to a considerable amount of time saved. In the two examples above, the three minutes saved in between sessions can conservatively add up to 15 minutes per day – based upon seeing an average of only five clients per day, per trainer. This is 1 1/4 hours per average work week, which translates to over 60 hours per-year, per trainer! This is a lot of time wasted, and of course, we all know that in the fitness industry, just like any other business – time is money.

Another valuable benefit of club management software with trainer management is that it can help bring balance to the life of your trainers, instructors, therapists and other employees. It can help the person who has trouble organizing and defining time for their personal and professional tasks so that they feel satisfied in both areas of their life. By using the software in the appropriate manner, it will be easy to help your team organize every area of their professional lives. So, they will be able to see what their goals are each day. And, when staff can successfully complete their goals on time, it makes them happier and more efficient, both on and off the job. In addition, an organized and efficient team portrays a positive image to your club members and clients, which will continue to add to the perceived value they receive from your club.

Finally, one of the biggest problems that people face at both work and home is stress. This is another area where effective management of personal trainers can help. This system can help reduce stress by giving everyone achievable goals – days and weeks ahead of time. So, they know exactly which clients they have to work with; which goals they have to accomplish, and how much time they have to accomplish them. At the same time, and for the same reasons, this type of system helps to improve discipline, reduce procrastination, and provide a significant sense of accomplishment for every member of your team.

By taking advantage of a powerful club and membership management software tool to help run your personal training, class instruction and therapeutic service departments, you can help your employees achieve balance, become more organized, and reduce stress in the workplace. The end result is an improvement in your team’s operational efficiency, saving hours of time on a weekly, monthly, and yearly basis, and providing a significant improvement to your club’s bottom line.

For a free evaluation of your existing club-wide scheduling and management process, please contact me directly any time.

Adam Zeitsiff is the CEO of EZFacility.com, Inc. He can be contacted at 866.498.EASY (3279), or visit www.ezfacility.com