Jul 28, 2020
PRO Club Response
5yWe appreciate the feedback from this prior cast member. I truly appreciate them pointing out the benefits offered at PRO Club such as full health, vision and dental coverage a 401k and most recently PRO Club paying trainers for the first several weeks of the Covid-19 shutdown. There are other benefits we offer such as sick call with our in house doctors, 4 weeks of a mini-2020 lifestyles program where we pay the trainer to go through training with one of our existing trainers, dietitians, counselors, and MDs. We pay them to workout, while also paying for their providers to provide professional services. Full time trainers (all cast members) receive a membership for themselves and one friend or family member. The value on these memberships is thousands of dollars each year.
While the Disney culture we adopted over 30 years ago isn’t for everyone it’s also something we layout from day one when they watch our introduction video prior to their interview. Our owner and president saw the amazing customer service the Disney corporation exudes and wanted our members to have that same high level of service positivity.
In terms of productivity goals we are a for profit business and need to manage to that but feel we’re in an incredibly powerful and rewarding business. We feel strongly about improving lives and seeing more people improves more lives and gives us further financial means to do that at the highest level. We have never had any of our trainers do 80 sessions in a week, our full time minimum after allowance time for SOAP notes, scheduling etc is actually about 26 sessions per week. We do reward those with the ability to extend more towards the 40+ sessions/week but it could be deemed insulting to say they are providing a lower quality service have those in the 25-30/week range. Those training a lot typically train a lot for 3 factors: They enjoy training (and the clients they work with), they enjoy the income from training more, but also because they do a great job with training and create that demand. Our management team also keeps an eye out for those high performers burning out. Trainers working too much can be mutually destructive for the business and for that trainer. It doesn’t benefit the business to lose a successful trainer. We want to keep them healthy and happy so they can continue to enhance the lives of our members while still keeping the business strong.
For the comments on pay rates we do have set guidelines based on education/certifications, success in the role, and tenure. There is the reality that for all businesses at the end of the day to increase take home pay of the service giver (and support staff) the cost of the service/product is passed on to customers. While this rate increase is split between the business and service provider in this case there are support staff to pay, utilities and supplies to pay for and those prices go up for us as a business operator too.
We have a very successful metabolic disease and weight loss program, 2020 Lifestyles, that is focused on lifestyle change. Lifestyle change is a challenge and as people regress in their successes we’ve added various programs to help them right the ship. Providing planned meals created with our dietitians and in house chef to temporarily eliminate decision challenges and reinstate healthy eating habits in our 21 day and 28 day “Challenges” is a prime example of this. I actually did the beta testing for this program years ago and found it tremendously helpful in identifying my eating challenges that weren’t created by hunger but habits. Identifying habits helped me zero in on ways to create better habits. We feel confident the programs we offer are in existence for the benefit of out members.
We do have a very popular medical spa that offers botox, other aesthetic services, as well as skin screenings and other medically based treatments. A routine skin screening actually detected an abnormality resulting in a biopsy a skin cancer for one of our trainers. The detection early was super fortunate for that individual. While aesthetic treatments aren’t appealing for all our members or cast members, that should not preclude us from having the freedom to provide this service to the members or cast members that do want to take part in any of these services.
Again, while PRO Club ends up not being the perfect place for all people, we appreciate the perspectives shared and the opportunity to give our view on the comments.
Carl C. Swedberg
Fitness Services Director at PRO Club
