How to Become a Health Club or Gymnasium Manager
If you enjoy sports and fitness, have managerial skills and like a challenge, working as a fitness or health centre manager may be for you.
Fitness or Health Centre Managers manage sports or leisure facilities. Fitness or health centre managers oversee the day-to-day operations of the facility. They are responsible for a broad range of operations, including managing staff, managing equipment, membership sales, marketing, providing fitness instruction, health and safety, and financial.
Different facilities will have different requirements of their managers. Larger organisations may have a team of managers that each specialise in a particular area, whereas managers of smaller organisations may manage all areas.
Some tasks a fitness or health centre manager may do include:
- Developing and implementing programmes to fulfil clients needs and generate revenue
- Manage marketing strategies
- Ensure the profitability of the centre
- Recruit, train, and manage staff – including they have relevant and up to date qualifications/training
- Ensure health and safety standards are met
- Prepare staff rosters and work schedules
- Manage equipment – ensuring they are in good condition, up to date and functioning
- Customer service
- May provide fitness instruction to clients
- Managing complaints and incidents
- Maintaining stock records, purchasing equipment and supplies as required
- Provide leadership
- Budgeting, managing cash and other financial management.
Opportunities:
The health, fitness and leisure industry is dynamic and rapidly growing. There is an increasing number of fitness instructors and facilities being opened – therefore there is an increasing demand for managers. A health or fitness centre manager may work in:
• Swimming pools
• Gyms and fitness centres
• Spa, sauna or therapy centres
• Sports halls or sports
• Community sports centres
• Recreational facilities
• Hotel leisure centres
• School and University fitness centres
• Sports clubs
• Holiday resorts
Salaries will vary depending on experience and the types of employment and facility.
Risks and challenges:
Managing a health and fitness centre can include unsocial hours, such as evenings, weekends and public holidays.
Managing an entire facility can be stressful at times. There will be significant responsibility to ensure the profitability of the centre, as well as general day to day stresses of managing a business.
As a manager you may also need to spend time in an office, which may be challenging for a fitness professional who prefers to be active.
A health and fitness manager will need to ensure they are up to date with relevant legislation, for example health and safety best practices, staff qualification requirements, first aid requirements, employment regulations etc.
How to become a Health or Fitness Centre Manager:
Health or Fitness Centre Managers will generally come to the role from one of two pathways. They may begin by obtaining skills in fitness instruction, then after experience in the fitness industry develop their career into a more managerial role; or they may begin by studying management, gain experience as a manager in another field, then move into the fitness industry.
Depending on their specific role, the manager may or may not be actively training clients. If they are, they will need to have relevant fitness qualifications. If the manager is more involved in overseeing the business operations, rather than actively training the clients they may not need fitness qualifications, however a knowledge of the fitness industry (even if just through personal experience) is important. In either scenarios, the manager will need to make sure they are up to date with their first aid and CPR training.
Basic business, marketing, and management skills will also be valuable.
To be a successful manager, certain personal attributes will need to be developed, including good communication skills, the ability to motivate staff (and clients), time management skills and organizational skills.
Other Related Jobs might include:
• Fitness leader
• Fitness Instructor
• Hotel Manager
• Tourism Manager
• Event Manager