*SIGH* Where to begin...
- 100% commission/no base pay
(even though a LOT of work was mandatory)
- Pay is VERY low when you compare your paycheck vs. actual hours spent in the club
- Required to work one weekend per month, regardless of total hours worked
(and it didn't matter that I already voluntarily worked 6 days per week - out of necessity)
- A LOT of pressure to hit monthly goals
(even when they weren't realistic - very problematic during the "slow" season)
- A LOT of micromanagement regardless of productivity
(I was a top 3 producer since the first month I started)
- Some of recommended(mandatory) "lead generation opportunities" suggested(enforced) by management are humiliating and completely ineffective
I could write a 25 page paper on the negative aspects of working for Life Time Fitness, but it would likely apply to the majority of "big-box" fitness facilities. If you are an employee you are a number, not a person. Job satisfaction and employee morale are a second thought(at best) and are always incredibly low(and this seems to be a trend). One of the Department Heads at my club summed it up best, "Life Time isn't a company of, "What have you done for me?" - Its a company of, "What have you done for me LATELY?" If you have several solid months of productivity(meeting or exceeding your revenue goals), followed by a single month of "sub-satisfactory performance"(missing your revenue goal regardless of circumstance) you are reprimanded and called into a meeting(not to discuss what you could potentially do to improve, but to lecture you on what you did wrong). I never once felt valued as an employee, and I can see why the turnover rate among trainers is so huge(even though during new-hire training LTF 'claimed' a turnover rate of just 14%).
I got into the personal training field because I genuinely wanted to help people improve their lives in a way that they were not capable of doing on their own(and I have done this quite successfully in the 5+ years i've spent as a fitness professional). However, LTF doesn't care about how many success stories a trainer has, or how many lives they change. They care about the numbers they produce. I always treated each of my clients as if they were my only client that day and built a personal relationship with them that extended beyond the club(I always gave them my cell phone number and allowed them to call me ANY time they had questions or just needed to talk). After all, their results personally mattered to me, and I knew realistically that my one hour with them in club was not enough to ensure their success if they were just "left on their own" for the other 23 hours simply because they weren't paying me. My clients saw how poorly I was treated, how many hours I worked(typically 55-60 hours/week), how little I was actually paid, and how under-appreciated I was and constantly tried getting me out of the club and into various different training facility(as long as I promised to still train them - lol).
Another BIG problem with Life Time is their special/holiday training package discount structure. Rather than taking a smaller percentage of the session to lower the cost, they would REQUIRE you to lower your training rate(which you work very hard to acquire by obtaining additional advanced training certifications). My personal training rate was $89/hr(I only got to keep around $30) but several times I was forced to lower my rate to "3 sessions for $99"(which meant I made around $12/hr). Life Time also offers its members "LT Bucks" as membership perks to new members, and at various intervals of the memberships of existing members which can be applied toward free personal training sessions. My clients REFUSED(yes, you read that correctly) to use them on me when they learned I only made $12.50/hour when they used them. If the people who are GIVEN these rewards refuse to use them because they believe they are unfair to the person who has to service them, Life Time should be able to realize this too. Sometimes morality and human compassion should mean more to a company than the ideas that make sense to the "bean counters."
All in all, I would have to say that working for LTF has been the all time low point for my training career, and it has left a bitter taste in my mouth. I cannot fathom recommending this employer to a friend(or even an enemy). In fact, I have actually decided to go back to school in order to pursue a degree in another field and no longer want anything to do with working in the fitness industry. I try to take away something positive from every experience I go through, and while this job may have taken away my passion for training, perhaps it will point me down another path that will make me even happier than training once did.
