Pros
Several: + The clubs themselves are amazing, and as an employee you do receive a complimentary membership. + There are some wonderful individuals that work at Equinox. And you'll find them on all levels of the *club* experience (have yet to have a strongly positive interaction with even a single member of Corporate, and I worked at Eqx for almost a decade). + The energy of a lot of the clubs can be a very inspiring atmosphere in which to work (and work out). + The amount of 'reps' you'll get as a trainer (training lots of clients over the time you work there, if you put in the work on your end) can get you comfortable with a broad spectrum of people and allow you to shape your own unique approach to training. Great laboratory, in other words. + On that same note, a definite pro of working here is: if you're successful as a trainer, management leaves you alone. Which is great. They don't micro-manage you if you're hitting your numbers. It's possible that part of this is due to the fact that management is so overwhelmed/stretched so thin by their ever-inflating goals that they're simply glad to not have to spend time on the successful trainers, but either way, I view this as a pro. Incidental or intentional, it's a pro. + If you go into it armed with the knowledge ahead of time that their pay structure for trainers is a death march, you can bust your butt for about 3 years and make some serious cash (the only way to make enough money to thrive -- and not just 'scrape by' -- is if you're top-tier and training 9-12 clients per day), then get out. Yes. This is a 'pro'. You *can* make some good money if you do it this way. It's just completely unsustainable in the long run.
Cons
- The company is, at the top, run by a calculator (private equity / real estate holdings company) and, sadly, the higher up you climb in the corporation, the farther it gets from feeling 'human'. Very sad. - Equinox believes in rewarding strong performance. Yes. Your reward for a strong month is a bigger goal the next month. This is so '90s in its thinking it's absurd. Life is a wave, not a perpetual growth model. - The company motto of "It's not fitness, it's life" applies only to member$$$. The company motto for employees could be something more along the lines of, "It's not a healthy life, it's free fitness." - The pay structure for trainers is, as mentioned above, a death march. They will throw numbers in your face when you are in the interview (and on-boarding) of 6-figure sums you can make as a trainer, and you absolutely can.. if you're willing to work yourself into such an unhealthy work-life 'balance' that you can't help but feel like a complete hypocrite for not practicing at all the very thing you're trying to preach to your clients. - Playing the long-game at Equinox is not advised. Unless you are planning to climb/scratch/claw your way up their Corporate ladder. If you are a trainer, do not plan to stay much longer than 3 years. - The way Eqx teaches you to sell training to clients is, to put it mildly, quite toxic. Dated, used-car-salesman tactics and turning prospecting clients into a pure 'numbers game' rather than teaching their employees to sell by using their inspiration.. to sell by taking that thing-that-drew-them-to-training-in-the-first-place and offering some of that light to a potential client. And yes, sales is a numbers game to some extent, but it's not the *only* ingredient. Some practical discernment when choosing a prospect in the club can go a long way. (i.e. "I'm running intervals on the treadmill with headphones on and I'm not looking at you when you walk by. No. I don't want to talk to you right now about training. And I don't care that your boss, the training manager, just told you to get out there and book 3 Equifits in the next 15 minutes. And I already have 6 towels. Thanks.") - As mentioned above, in the almost-10-years I worked there, I never had a single strongly-positive interaction with a member of Corporate. And here's the thing: Let's give them the benefit of the doubt. After all, on the club level, Equinox is a revolving door of employees. Very few people stay longer than 18 months. So I can understand why Corporate doesn't engage every employee.. a lot of them won't be there long enough for their energy output to be justified. But there are two problems now: (1) The fact that your company is a revolving door is a problem. This problem has been around for a while now. Do you intend to fix it or..? (2) I wasn't one of those employees. I was there for a long time, saying hello and being polite (making an effort to engage), all while diligently training my clients and, ultimately, helping the company and that very corporate employee be more successful. At what point do you begin engaging your employees? Or do you just.. not? Important note at this point: I am writing this from a perspective of 'openness'.. not negativity or resentment. As I'm reading all this, I'm seeing how negatively it could be sounding, and I'm not sure what to do about it because all I'm doing is expressing what it was like to work there. I'm not one of those employees that needs hand-holding or appreciation. On the contrary, I like doing my own thing. As I mentioned up in the Pros, that was even one of the bright spots to me is that management did leave me alone for the most part. This was more something I simply couldn't-help-but-notice when, after several *years* in a row of seeing the same Corporate employees, looking them in the eye, greeting them by name and saying, "Hey {insert name here} it's nice to see you," the only response was some variation of an eyebrow raise, chin nod, or, every once in a while, "Hey." Again, I get that for the first few months. Equinox is a huge company. I really do get it. But after years of seeing the same person? Just seems to me like you would *want* to engage with the employees who are sticking around. Like you would want to reinforce that.