How to Manage Your Gym Efficiently

Running a box/ gym is such a rewarding job. There really is nothing like being able to look around and celebrate in the community you’ve built from scratch and to see how your space actually improves people’s quality of life – from getting healthier, to achieving life-long goals and making really positive lifestyle changes. It’s a job where you can manage your own time, be your own boss and make decisions that feel right to you and for your community.

However, despite all of the good stuff – it takes a hell of a LOT of hard work and countless hours to keep a box running efficiently. Often that can mean a struggle to keep home and gym life separate because you want to make sure each of your members is getting the personal experience you want them to – especially as your numbers start to grow. It can be hard to step away from the box – even on your days off but eventually that leads to burn out and processes being run less efficiently.

So, in this blog we’re taking a quick look at 4 ways you can streamline your gym management to maximise your time as a box owner.

Schedule in a No Distraction Zone

It sounds simple, but the best solutions often are!

Did you know it takes around 24 minutes to get your head back into focus on a task after a distraction? So, say you set aside time to sit down to do your programming, you’re 10 minutes in and a coach nips their head around the office door to ask you where you last saw the chalk bucket or even how your weekend was – once you’ve answered those questions it will take you over 20 minutes to be fully back on task with where you were before, killing your productivity and meaning you probably won’t get all the jobs done in the hour / 2 hours you’d set aside.

Work out a time in your week that you can be confident is usually pretty quiet – e.g a time where you can expect no interruptions from family demands and when you’re not likely to get distracted by someone needing your attention/ time and make it clear that you need this to be a distraction free zone unless there is an emergency. Whether that’s very first thing on a Monday morning, Sunday evening or the middle of the day on a week day. It doesn’t matter when that block of time is but keep it the same each week and get into a routine that other people can get used to too. If you have to, stick a sign on the door, the back of your laptop or wherever you are working as a clear reminder you are in the zone and don’t want to be interrupted. It might not be in your nature to do it but it will make sure you are able to be more efficient and streamline the time it takes to complete weekly tasks.

Use this time to get all your necessary admin tasks done – from the box programming to paying bills, replying to emails, ordering in more stock for the vending machine to doing your planning for the weeks ahead. Have a set ‘To Do List’ that you tick off before you leave that space. Once it’s done for the week you can then forget about it. 

Delegate to Your Team

When you first set up your box it was probably just you, or perhaps you and a partner doing absolutely everything from marketing, to coaching, cleaning and everything else in-between. While you were probably completely run off your feet you will have gotten used to things being done a certain way and might even feel as though you are the only person who knows how to do a certain job. Once your facility starts to grow and you hire your first employees it can sometimes be hard to let go of that control. You want everything done perfectly and so you might be tempted to do jobs yourself or even check over and tweak jobs that are being done by your staff.

Resist the urge to micromanage. This isn’t a good idea for two reasons.

1 – It ultimately wastes your time. By spending time checking every little thing your staff are doing jobs are probably getting done twice when they didn’t need to be.

2 – It takes ownership away from your staff members. This isn’t good because first and foremost they need to feel trusted to do the job, and secondly, sometimes if staff think they always have you to fall back on there is no incentive for them to be proactive and take responsibility. Empower your staff to feel ownership and pride of the gym too.

Set out clear boundaries and write out a system of hierarchy that every staff member has a copy of. For example – you might outline jobs that you will always usually want to be in control of, but in the event you are not there then the next in command is X.  Make sure that it’s not always you who gets asked every single question by default. You might be a natural leader who they gravitate towards to ask for advice and help which is of course a good thing – however, your staff are a team and should try and solve issues themselves and with one another before defaulting to ask you to sort it out every time – especially if you are off that day or stuck into something else.

Delegate admin tasks to your team that increase member retention. Ask every coach to set aside even just 20 minutes each day to run through set tasks on the dashboard. For example, on coach might be responsible for checking in on active member goals each week and sending out tips with nudges to members to help them hit those goals, one coach might be responsible for sending out a certain number of high 5s on the activity feed and one might be in charge of picking out the member of the month and writing out a Member Spotlight for them to post out on the app.

Invest in Training

This follows the same thread as above but it is so important for helping you to streamline your gym management. The old saying goes ‘Look after your staff & they will look after your customers’ and this is so true.

While it might seem at first that it’s just easier to do jobs yourself as you can do them quickly and easily and it will take hours to train up staff to do things the way you want them done – by investing that time to train staff properly, it means that you can then eventually step away from certain jobs completely and relax knowing they are being done to your standards.

Give your staff opportunities to up skill themselves, invest in staff incentives, have a competitive perks package for your team and it will pay you back ten-fold. To run your gym efficiently it’s vital to have a group of people you can trust. You should be able to walk away from the gym for a week knowing that your staff know exactly how to perform every task that needs to be done, who is responsible for what and most importantly they should want to keep standards high while you are away because they value and enjoy their job.

Each employee should have a set list of their specific job roles. They should know exactly what jobs you expect them to have ticked off before and after each session and by training up staff you will find that when newer staff come on-board you can actually leave it to your trusted longer term staff to do this training for you.

Automate Tasks

Automating various tasks can really be a lifesaver when it comes to efficiency. You might know over the next month you have some important announcements or events coming up at the gym that you need to make your members aware of but aren’t sure when you will find the time to get all those messages out. Bulk write out News Posts when you do have spare time and schedule them to go out on the days and times you need them to so you can then tick that off your list.

Similarly with programming, if you know you have a busier few weeks coming up ahead – maybe even a holiday, you might sit down and plan out your next month, or even 3 months or more of programming with Session Blocks.

Make your admin time productive and also use it to make your members experience more personal too. Set up audiences to collate data for you so that you can easily keep track of members who might need extra encouragement or attention to keep them on track and retain their membership. Set up and automate small prize draws every week and gift out a free Nocco once a week for a member who has made it in to 3 or more sessions.

Having BoxMate & TeamUp as a combined gym management solution in your facility means you can automate so many tasks to save you precious time as a box owner.

If you have any questions about how BoxMate could help you streamline your time as a gym owner then get in touch!

If you’re already using BoxMate and just want to speak to the team about upgrading to PLUS or how you can use the system better for your facility then get in touch!

If you don’t yet use BoxMate and want to know what it’s all about then you can start your 30 day free trial today. No card details needed – register today by clicking here!