Finding the Right Pilates Team

Hiring Pilates instructors to work or rent space at your studio can be exciting and overwhelming all at the same time. Exciting because congratulations are in order—your studio business is doing so well that you need to have more teachers to keep up with demands. Overwhelming because you want to make the right decision.

Hiring the wrong instructor not only means you’ll be back in the hiring process again sooner rather than later, but also there is the fallout from hiring someone who isn’t the right fit. Bringing on a new team member who is the right fit allows your business to grow and flourish. So, how do you find someone who is the right fit? How do you help your future-self avoid having to clean up a mess and start over? If you do not have a crystal ball to ask, then continuing reading.

Tips for Hiring Pilates Instructors

Plan Ahead: If you are seeing the need for an instructor at your studio, and your gut is telling you that there needs to be another one of you, and it’s getting harder and harder to fit clients in, then it’s probably already past time to hire someone. If you start the process early enough, you shouldn’t have to hire out of desperation, which could start you down a bad cycle of team members.

Be Systematic: Design a hiring system. Every interviewee should answer the same questions. Sure, there may be questions that come up based on their answers that are unique to that person, but you want to have a base to compare them against. Having these questions in front of you also ensures that you won’t forget to ask an important question that may slip your mind in the moment.

Know Your Vision: This is your studio, your space. Yes, you need instructors to continue to move forward and be successful, but ultimately they need to fit within your studio’s goals. If you know the vibe and the goals of your studio, then as you interview, you can ask yourself: “Does this person’s own goals and vision intersect with mine or are they going in a different direction?” If they are going West and you’re going East, you’ll find yourself back where you started. If they are going North East, then at least you have the easterly winds in your favor.

Take Your Time: When hiring, take your time and make the right decision for your clients and your studio. You may like a particular teacher, for example, but that person is used to working with young and healthy group classes. Your studio may be filled with clients being referred by a local physical therapy office. Share suggestions on how to get the experience you need instructors to have, so that maybe someday in the future, that teacher may be able to be part of your team.

How Red is that Flag?: It important to find out instructors’ work histories and have them audition to teach for you; however, you need to identify, investigate, and consider whether there are any red flags. Ask this list of questions to help you get a more accurate picture of an instructor:

• Why did you become a teacher?
• Who inspires you?
• Where did you do your training and why did you pick that program?
• Who is your ideal client?
• When can you teach?
• How do you build your business?

Following these tips doesn’t mean that you’ll hire correctly 100% of the time, but they will help you begin to build a foundation for your hiring process and decision-making. Hiring right makes managing easier. No one gets into owning a studio so they can manage instructors. But hire or bring on an independent contractor without a system in place (or out of desperation), and you’ll find yourself wishing you were the independent contractor who didn’t have a studio to run.

xx~LL

Are you a studio owner or manager looking for more information on where to find instructors? How to create a hiring system? What are the red flags to look for? Contact me and let’s help you all the tools you need to hire the team you need to hit your goals.