Pros
* Free membership (with restrictions) to nicest "big box" gym in the area. * Contact with many affluent, successful members who can help your own growth. * Many great co-workers. Fun people to work with. * The (unreasonably) high expectations lead to a very fast learning curve. * Required in-house trainer education is better than any other large chain commercial gym. * Many opportunities for free continuing education, or at a discounted rate (this only applies to training staff, not other departments), often with knowledgeable industry leaders.
Cons
* Terrible pay - $8/hour for floor shifts, and you have to do 20 hours/week, so it's very difficult to get a second job to supplement your whopping $160/week base (pre-tax). Worse, most members assume "blue shirts" don't know very much and look at you more as their towel-boy/girl or personal free stretch provider, than as a serious source of fitness information. - Equinox takes about 65% of the session profit. This is industry standard, but you'd expect better from a company that claims to be an industry leader and to have the BEST trainers. How many of the best trainers stick around to make $35 of out a $100 session, for more than two years? It's much more likely that your $100 hour session is being performed by someone who was stocking shelves at Best Buy 2 months ago than by someone who is a professional trainer who does this as a career. - A Tier 3 trainer who was promoted to Tier 3 yesterday, gets the same pay as someone who has been a Tier 3 trainer for many years. There's no incentive to stay and keep your clients at Equinox. - Same goes for education: Having a degree, Master's degree, or higher level certifications yields no increase at all in pay. * PT Clients also not treated well - there is no break for the membership fee, even though clients spend 5-15k/year on PT. There are no renewal incentives or loyalty rewards. Clients feel like the company doesn't appreciate their business, even after years of pouring thousands into the business. * Easy to lose health benefits - no matter how long you've been with the company, how much money you've made them over the years, if you miss your hourly quota for a single quarter, you will lose your health benefits. Especially given that many people who can afford training, can do so because they have jobs that require extensive travel, and who also take long vacations, it's very easy to miss your quarterly hour quota due to clients being away. * It's obvious that the company considers you expendable. They can get another Best Buy shelf stocker easily, with the promise of $44/hour, and turn them into a personal trainer - complete with a shiny "Train" shirt - in two weeks. It doesn't matter that you have put 100's of hours and $1000's into bettering yourself as a trainer. They don't care about quality, at all; only quantity. They want to get everything out of you that they can, till you leave, which they count on. They assume you can easily be replaced by anyone off the street, and don't care. The people in charge of the EFTI in house education seem to be genuinely interested in increasing the quality of the trainers, but it's very obvious that those above them in the hierarchy value quantity WAY over quality. * Gimmicky approach - you must promote and sell whatever gimmick the corporate executives dreamed up in the name of fitess that year. Doesn't matter if it's demonstrably less effective than other methods, or questionable in terms of a trainer's scope of practice. * Because of the business model, not only are many trainers very recently coming from another unrelated profession, but they treat their sessions like babysitting sessions - "you're paying me $100/hour, so I'll do everything for you, I"ll invent 83 ways to do a lunge so you think I'm valuable, I'll find some excuse to touch the bar during your set so it seems like I'm doing something active, even though this is counter-productive and unneccessary..." There's pressure to make yourself feel needed RIGHT NOW so your client renews their package, even though by doing so, you are not acting in the best interests of your clients' fitness goals. * Equipment is purchased and placed in a user-unfriendly way for training. Space is taken up mostly by machines, which good trainers don't use; which, in fact, we are TAUGHT not to use by OUR OWN in-house education at EFTI. Not enough places to lift actual weights or do drills with clients - again, putting aesthetics over results, form before function. In some cases, Equinox still carries machines that are proven to be damaging. Rather than educate, they let the consumer dictate. * Managers are pressued to meet their membership quotas, so they'll do anything to keep even obnoxious members from quitting. Managers are afraid to confront members, and i don't blame them. If my success was judged by an executive who has no idea what is going on in the club, how the employees feel about me, my leadership qualities, etc... and that exec is ONLY looking at raw membership numbers or revenue etc... I'd also not want to risk losing a member. But this sets the bad example that members feel free to not put weights away, etc... because no one wants to risk them taking their business elsewhere. The $8/hour floor trainer will clean up after you anyway. He just came from stocking shelves at Best Buy, this job is way better. When he figures out it sucks, we'll get a new Best Buy shelf stocker to take his place.