Yes You Can

Fitpros & Finances: the Pay Transparency Project

• Hannah Pratt

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Ever wonder what group fitness instructors get paid? 

Or... if what you're getting paid is "industry standard?" 

To my knowledge, there's little-to-no information widely available on the average pay scales for instructors, coaches, or the junior-to-lead instructor promotion.

In this episode, I'm opening up the conversation about pay transparency in our industry and start to share results from my new project, the Fit Pro Pay Transparency Project, where I'm collecting survey responses from group fitness instructors from around the world until April 15.

We also talk about:

  • Why instructors should get paid commission or bonuses 
  • Contractors vs. employees
  • Finances for fitpros 
  • How it's not the studio vs. instructors
  • Why transparency helps everyone understand expectations  


FILL OUT THE SURVEY HERE

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the yes you Can podcast, a soft place to land for fit pros and aspiring entrepreneurs looking for a motivational cheerleader who's been through it all and believes your best life is about being brave and tapping into your magic. Hi, I'm Hannah Pratt, an online coach and vulnerability queen. I'm here ready to share my experiences through grief, life and finding my place on the podium to help you level up. So grab a latte and a notebook and get ready to be inspired through the yes you Can podcast. Hello, hello, friends, welcome to another episode of the yes you Can podcast. Today is going to be a little bit of a different one. We are going to be talking about finances and being a fit pro, specifically around pay transparency. This, it, can be a triggering subject for some, especially if you are a studio owner or manager or somebody who pays others and manages others like I want to preface this entire conversation by saying, as somebody who has managed, hired and fired people for the last 10 years of my career, I know how hard it is to get the best out of people. For all the work that you do in mentoring, giving professional development, and often it's a thankless job. Often you're not getting the appreciation you deserve, and so something like this, where we're talking about pay and it can feel very transactional, that could be triggering. So I just want to say I have been where you are. I currently am where you are, where I hire people and have people who help me in my business, and so I'm there with you and I also think that as an industry, we have room to grow around payment and compensation, and part of that is looking at models that work better and more effectively for instructors and studios so that there's more clear understanding of what the expectations are and what you can get out of your instructors in exchange for the payment, because most people, myself included, didn't get into this for making a ton of money, right, we didn't like sign up to be a group fitness instructor to say I'm going to be rich now, like that's just not the case.

Speaker 1:

We get into it because we love community, we love leading people through hard stuff, we love the connection that happens, the overcoming challenges, the like believing in yourself, all the connection that happens, the overcoming challenges, the believing in yourself, all of the stuff that happens, all the magic that happens in that room, and also it takes up a lot of our space, our life and when we talk about what we get in exchange at the base level, there is the financial aspect and then there's all of the other benefits that we get as being a part of this industry. So I have a new survey where I'm gathering information, I'm gathering data on payment, not just included in what you actually make per hour or per class, but what you are paid holistically. So if you receive benefits, if you're an employee, if you're a contractor, all of those sorts of things, I expect this project to be something that we do. Multiple times. I've already received suggestions on different questions. I could be asking, and I love that.

Speaker 1:

A survey is really hard to build. I actually teach this in my marketing classes and I wanted it to be, you know, not casual and not informal, because I want the data to be good and shareable. But I needed the questions to be clear enough that people could answer. So I'm going to roll through the questions right now the link, if you're like. Oh my God, I want to fill this out right now. The link is in the show notes. So it's called the FitPro Pay Transparency Project. Fitpro Pay Transparency Project. I'm always going to stumble over that.

Speaker 1:

The goal of the Pay Transparency Project is to collect information from group fitness instructors and coaches from around the world and share it transparently within our global community to encourage empowerment and advocacy within the industry. Your personal information will remain confidential. I only aspire to share the results after if you include your email Not required, but if you'd like to see it, I need your email. Results are going to be shared after April 15th. The project is initiated by me and, again, all of your personal information will be confidential. So I ask first where you live and teach. So I'm asking for the country, the province or state or city or region, wherever makes sense for wherever you are. And then I ask select the best response that represents how you're paid.

Speaker 1:

So flat rate. A flat rate and I don't talk about this in the survey but flat rate is per class. So no matter how many people are in the class, you get paid, let's say, $40 an hour or $45 an hour. Second option is flat rate plus commission. So you would bank commission per head and usually there is a like once you hit a certain level. So once you hit like nine people, then you start to accumulate those bonuses per person. This is something that a lot of writers won't know and why numbers can be frustrating, even though we'd love to not care about them. Numbers can be frustrating because when somebody cancels before the late cancel deadline or whatever, we will lose money, essentially because we were going into it thinking we were going to be making more again. This is not why we do the thing, but still part of it. So a flat rate plus commission would look like 45 per class plus two dollars per every person beyond a certain number and then usually capped at a certain amount. Salary is another option. So weekly or monthly, no matter how many classes you teach or other, and a lot of people are choosing other who also and I just have to say this, I already have like 128 responses in lunch this literally yesterday. So if you say other, a lot of people are still describing a commission-based setup, but just a little bit more detailed. Like it's. You know, there's certain stipulations of how you have to hit a certain level and then X, y, z. I haven't seen anything where people get paid more, like as a flat rate, depending on what time of class they teach or anything like that.

Speaker 1:

I then ask if you're an employee or a contractor. So employee would mean that you get it like a T4 slip. If you're in a Canadian, you're supposed to have all of the extras paid for. That's still not the case often. You still often have to pay for equipment you use, which I take exception to If you're an employee. You're not receiving the benefit of being able to claim those expenses, so I think that you shouldn't have to then pay for them. If you're a contractor, on the other hand, you get to claim all of those expenses like mileage, driving to and from the studio, your headset, your computer, if you buy a new computer, your clothing all of that sort of stuff is claimable, which is amazing, yeah.

Speaker 1:

So I ask about benefits. If you're an employee, do you receive benefits? A lot of it's, it's a lot of, I would say. 90 percent of the people so far have said no, and I'm going to share this in a much more like methodical way Once the results are out. I'm just sort of describing what I'm seeing so far.

Speaker 1:

Then I ask how many years of experience you have teaching fitness classes, because this obviously can affect how much you're getting paid. So can certifications obviously can affect how much you're getting paid. So can certifications. I left that out because certifications range so significantly by where you are in the world and I'm going to add that on to the second version of this survey, but if I added it now it would skew the results. So how many years of experience? I'm in my first year? Between one and three years, four and six years, seven and 10, 11 and 15 or 16 and above. A few people have selected 16 and above and 11, 15. So there's people who will rock it for a while, which I love, and then we talk about like different levels, so junior instructor or instructor in training.

Speaker 1:

Now, I don't know about all of you who are listening, but being paid for training is like I don't see any consistent answers ever. When I'm talking to fit pros, I often hear about fit pros who have to pay to train, which I think is ridiculous. I'm just going to say it. If you have been selected by a studio to work there, you should not be paying for training to be working there. Now this is like after you've already auditioned, you should not be paying for training. They're investing in you. They need to be paying for that eating, that cost with the understanding that you know they've done the rigorous work of selecting who should be at their studio and not expecting it to be all on you, because the time that it takes to train all of that stuff is already an investment on your part and I think it needs to be equal. There needs to be an equal energy exchange, otherwise they would just be doing a workshop like how I do with Instructor Magic.

Speaker 1:

Like you know, I'm not hiring instructors and I certainly wouldn't require them to take Instructor Magic if I did hire them. In fact, I've given Instructor Magic away to some of my peers who I have trained, just to help them with added resources so that I I then don't have to answer questions that already in the in the program. So a junior instructor or instructor in training, I'm a regular instructor at my studio. I'm a senior or lead instructor, like formally recognized, not just somebody who's sort of the leader, but like actually you have a different title, so this is so somebody who's formally recognized as a lead instructor. So that's often like at SoulCycle we see that senior master instructors have have a different title. Or I'm a studio owner or have ownership in the studio and I know there's studio owners who have, who've answered this, which is great I'm a studio owner or have ownership in the studio and I know there's studio owners who have answered this, which is great.

Speaker 1:

Have you ever received a raise? So this response so far has been. Let me just look at it. There are some really great questions about how to ask for a raise. So 60% so far almost 61% have said no. Percent so far. Almost 61 percent have said no. Um, 39 almost 40 percent have said well, not, almost 40. 39.1 have said yes. So that was interesting to me. So the majority anything over 50 is the majority has said that they have not received a raise. Now, getting back into the questions are the pay levels transparent at your studio? I, ie all instructors are aware of pay scales yes, no or somewhat and so far the answers have been. Survey says it's pretty even so 37.5% have said yes, 37.5% have said no and 27.3% have said somewhat, 37.5% have said no and 27.3% have said somewhat. So I then ask if there's anything you'd like to add, and I've gotten 37 out of the 128. People have added some more context and so I can tell that some of the instructors or some of the responses are from studio owners and you know they talk about transparency in businesses and stuff like that. And is anything ever transparent and the truth is like, yes, things are often transparent.

Speaker 1:

We pay transparency with job postings right now is a very hot and intense topic in what we're talking about when we say equity and if you look on LinkedIn, this is a topic that's widely discussed. Pay transparency with job roles. It is extremely helpful when somebody can know what they're going to be paid for a job. It helps indicate levels of experience you're expecting, responsibilities that you might be including other expectations that might not be clearly outlined, that you might be including other expectations that might not be clearly outlined when you have paid. Transparency within a job role of how much they make what they receive. It also helps breed way more connectivity and cohesion within your group of instructors, because everybody is aware of what it takes to get to that next level. I had the amazing Krista Gurka, who is a studio boutique studio owner, consultant and coach and she has masterminds for studio owners to help them get to seven figures and above with regular revenue.

Speaker 1:

So we have a whole discussion around leadership and hiring and firing and pay transparency and helping like instructors or your coaches or whoever know what it is that they are expected to do in exchange for their payment and how they can get a raise, like what is clearly going to be expected of them to get that next level is helpful to you. It is incredibly helpful and one of the places that I've worked that had the least amount of pay transparency. That was so about, like, whether you were able to negotiate and whether you were an effective negotiator. Like some people received vehicles, some people received RRSPs, which is a retirement savings program, others did not, like everything was on the table and that was because the boss is a really effective negotiator and enjoyed running it like his own business. Now, I don't believe in that.

Speaker 1:

Personally, I think that when I say I want to give somebody a raise or a promotion, I want them to know exactly what it takes to get there, and that requires me to also have very like transparent pay at the outset. If you have a degree, like, do you get more? If you have a certain certification, do you get paid more? If you have been teaching for a certain amount of years, do you get more? Like all of these things, there's no downside. There's absolutely no downside, unless there's a reason why you don't want to share what people are getting paid, and that might be because you haven't taken this approach and so there's different pay levels across the board.

Speaker 1:

Now to ask for a raise, you, as the fit pro, might say like I fill my classes consistently and I have a wait list and I do X, y, z around the studio, which helps offload this responsibility for you. I might come to you with ideas, film content, I might be providing professional development for the other instructors and like helping training them on my own time. Those are all things that can warrant a raise, especially if you were filling classes right. The business case for asking for a raise is either did you make me money or did you save me money, and utilization at studios is that metric that pro boutique studio owners or studio owners in general will be looking at is their utilization rate. So how many people are coming to your classes on a daily basis?

Speaker 1:

Now, this is getting into the nitty gritty. This is the honesty stuff. Like we can't ask for raises if we don't know our own numbers. So, as instructors, when I talk about waitlists, I'm not doing it because that's what I think group fitness is about. I teach about how to get to waitlist so that you can be not only confidently showing up to classes, knowing that it's full or nearly full or has been waitlisted, but that also, you can make a business case for when you want to become a lead instructor or receive a raise in any way, shape or form or receive more benefits. So this is something that I'm excited to be providing studio owners with too. I don't want this to be like a you know owners with too. I don't want this to be like a you know instructors are rising up and we're going to unionize Like. I just want to provide information widely, without asking for specific information around names, studios names, et cetera. Talking about regions and where you are in the world, for the next survey we're going to do whether you are part of a franchise or whether you are a part of a like an independently owned studio. Now, independently owned studios can still do really well and have multiple locations. Right doesn't mean that you're just like a mom and pop shop, like on the corner struggling, like there's lots of people that I coach who do really well with their studio and pay their instructors really well.

Speaker 1:

I did have a comment from somebody that I know and have coached in the past and one of the things that's a positive outcome when you start to look at pay scales and how you can perhaps help your instructors make more money or give them more empowerment to fill their classes and more incentive to fill their classes. One of the things that she said to me was transitioning to a pay structure with bonuses was when my team really bought in. They're all 100% on board and work so hard for us. Now, wouldn't that be nice if you're a studio owner hearing that Like I've again coached so many people inside Instructor Magic almost 350 over my time many of whom are studio owners, and the question I get is like, how do we get our instructors to promote our classes? The easiest answer is to incentivize them through bonuses. That alleviates the skin on like of you being in the game of saying like I'm going to pay you more if you fill this class. It's it's like a clear, a clear ladder of per person you make this much and having that out there is empowering to that instructor and if they don't want to do it, then they don't want to do it, then they don't have to do it and they still get their flat rate, their base rate.

Speaker 1:

But that is an outcome and a positive benefit of having this commission-based structure that I will. This is a hill I would die on for sure. It incentivizes people to come up with new themes, to be more creative, to invest in themselves, to take it seriously, even the days they don't feel like it and it is. It doesn't have us compete with each other. It competes with ourselves, right? We want to make more money, we want to get paid appropriately, and I think that's that's empowerment, that's total empowerment. So if you would like to fill out the survey, please do so.

Speaker 1:

We have it running until April 15th and then I'm hoping just to have it be sort of an iterative, iterative thing where I'm going to develop a bit of a platform and you can log in and see the results and then add to it as we go and just make it better and better. If you'd like to sign up for the next waitlist of Instructor Magic, these are things that we talk about inside the community, inside the Facebook group, inside our lessons and our Q&A calls, and the next round is going to be launching in April, which I'm so flipping stoked about. We have new guest masterclass instructors who are going to be doing monthly lives now, so it's going to be transitioning almost to a bit of a membership, where we have lots of stuff happening each month. So the benefit of joining in a cohort is that you get the team that you're going through the lessons with and then and a lot of the stuff that you're going through the lessons with and then and a lot of the stuff that's happening within a live round, and then you can join whenever it's. Just getting access to those things through sooner will help you level up sooner.

Speaker 1:

I also have an upcoming trip to Arizona in the early June, so if you were out there, I would love to connect with you. I'm only going to be there for a weekend, but I love to try some classes while I'm out there. And finally, if you are a studio owner and would like to hire me or work with me to help you with consulting, with marketing, I am starting to take on one-on-one clients and develop different offers for you so you can have your entire team go through instructor magic, obviously at a bundled rate with group trainings with me. These can be live in person, depending on where you are, or they can be online, and I can be doing group calls with you as well. So there is links to all of these things in the show notes, wait list, sign up, get on the email list I see all of them come through and please fill out the FitPro Pay Transparency Project survey so we can all level up, fill classes and know how we are getting paid.

Speaker 1:

Thanks everyone, have a great weekend and we'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening all the way to the end of the yes you Can podcast. If you loved this one, I would so appreciate a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts that lets others know that, hey, this is a good podcast and it's worthwhile to listen to. If you really loved it, make sure to share with somebody you love who could benefit from a little magic and motivation in their lives. Thanks so much, friends, and have a great day.