2008
Employee Compensation & Benefits Survey Results
for the Commercial Health & Fitness Industry
Sponsored by
ActiveCareers.com
The Premier Resource for Fitness Industry Professionals
2008
Compensation and
Benefits Survey
CONFIDENTIALITY ASSURANCE
The Compensation and Benefits Survey is based on a strictly confidential survey
conducted of IHRSA members. Upon receipt, all survey responses are assigned a
confidential code number by Industry Insights, Inc., and any name or company
identification is removed. Survey processing is then conducted on an absolutely
anonymous basis. No IHRSA staff member nor any industry company or individual, nor
anyone else other than a select few Industry Insights, Inc. associates ever see any
firm’s results.
Compiled by The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association, and Industry
Insights, Inc.
Copyright © 2008. International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association
All rights reserved. No part of this report may be reprinted, reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means—electronic, mechanical,
or otherwise—without the express written consent of IHRSA.
The International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association is a nonprofit trade
organization, serving the commercial club industry. To order copies of this report or
other IHRSA publication, contact:
IHRSA 617-951-0055; 617-951-0056 fax
Seaport Center 800-228-4772 (U.S. & Canada)
70 Fargo Street http://www.ihrsa.org
Boston, MA 02210
To order copies of this report visit www.ihrsastore.com.
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Table of Contents
About This Report....................................................1 Hourly Club-Level Employees
Aquatics Instructor ............................................45
How to Spot and Keep Great Employees...............2
Personal Trainer (In-Session Rate) ..................46
Survey Methodology................................................8 Personal Trainer (Floor Rate) ...........................47
Specialty Personal Trainer................................48
Definitions.................................................................8 Sales Representative........................................49
Fitness Center Personnel/Instructor..................50
Respondent Profile ..................................................9
Tennis Instructor ...............................................51
Executive Summary Group Exercise/Aerobics Instructor ..................52
General Compensation .....................................13 Pilates Instructor ...............................................53
Senior Management/Corporate Yoga instructor..................................................54
Staff Compensation .......................................13 Front-Desk Personnel .......................................55
Salaried Club-Level Employee Compensation..14
Hourly Club-Level Employee Compensation.....15 Job Requirements
Job Requirements.............................................16 Senior Management/Corporate Staff ................59
Employee Benefits ............................................16 Salaried Club-Level Employees........................59
Hourly Employees.............................................59
Compensation Data
Senior Management/Corporate Staff
Commissions and Bonus Plan
Chief Executive Officer......................................21
Sales Staff ........................................................63
Chief Operating Officer .....................................22
Personal Training Instructor..............................63
Chief Financial Officer.......................................23
Regional Club Manager ....................................24 Employee Benefits
Sales & Marketing Director ...............................25 Benefits Offered to Salaried Employees ...........67
Human Resources Director...............................26 Benefits Offered to Hourly Employees..............68
Fitness/Training Director ...................................27 Health Insurance Practices ...............................69
Salaried Club-Level Employees Retirement Plans ..............................................70
General Manager ..............................................31 Paid Leave........................................................71
Sales and Marketing Manager ..........................32 Recruitment.......................................................73
Fitness Director.................................................33
Group/Exercise/Aerobics Director.....................34
Personal Training Director ................................35
Tennis Director..................................................36
Assistant General Manager...............................37
Front-Desk Manager .........................................38
Aquatics Manager .............................................39
Youth Fitness Manager .....................................40
Childcare Manager............................................41
Member Service Director ..................................42
Acknowledgements
Katie Rollauer, IHRSA Senior Research Manager
Melissa Rodriguez, IHRSA Research Manager
Kristen Walsh, IHRSA Senior Content Editor
Shawn E. Six, Principal, Industry Insights
Patricia Amend, Contributing Writer
Rob Langone, IHRSA Marketing & Design Manager
In particular, the 91 IHRSA members who contributed their time and effort in order to
complete the 2008 Compensation and Benefits Survey.
About This Report
The 2008 IHRSA Compensation and Benefits Report, a valuable service offered to club
operators, contains new features. In addition to aggregated survey results and analysis, this year’s
report includes analysis of results, a human resource-related article, and for survey participants,
online access to survey results. Club operators will gain helpful insight from a panel of CEOs and
HR directors of leading clubs in this year’s feature article. As an alternative to the printed report
form, access to results online will provide participating clubs with the option of searching for
compensation data for specific job titles.
The information contained in this report represents the most complete, accurate and up-to-date
compensation data in the club industry. The report is designed to allow a company to easily
compare its compensation levels to 30 common job titles in the industry. These job titles include
positions in senior management, salaried club-level employees and hourly club-level employees.
In total, responding companies employ nearly 13,000 employees and operate about 700 clubs.
In addition to compensation information, responding companies provided data on employee
benefits offered, health insurance practices, retirement plans, vacation and sick leave.
Detailed tables have been created in the compensation section of the report. These tables show
all of the compensation data for a particular job title including the following aggregations: All
Respondents, By Total Annual Sales, By Geographic Region, By Type of Operation, and By
Number of Clubs (owned or managed).
These aggregations will allow companies to compare their own data to the results of similar
companies.
As a company compares its compensation information to that of the industry, it is important to
recognize that the statistics published in this report should be regarded as “guidelines” rather than
“absolute standards.” Because companies will differ depending upon their location, size, and other
factors, any two companies may offer their employees a reasonably attractive compensation
package and yet be very different. For example, duration of employment and nature of prior
experience will obviously influence the compensation offering for a particular individual. Thus, a
deviation between any one company’s figures and a number appearing on a table in this report is
not necessarily good or bad; it is merely an indication that additional scrutiny may be warranted.
It is particularly important to recognize that, where data segmentation has resulted in the findings
being based upon a small number of actual responses, one or two responses within any subset
can dramatically affect the reported findings. As a result, considerable variability may exist in the
data for those positions where the segmented analysis resulted in a small number of responses,
i.e. less than 10 responses.
Throughout the report “*” indicates that there was insufficient response data to provide a
meaningful statistic for that item.
We at Industry Insights, Inc. are proud to present the enclosed insights into the compensation and
benefit practices of the health, racquet and sportsclub industry. We wish to thank the clubs who
submitted data for this study.
2008 IHRSA Compensation and Benefits Survey Results ! Page 1
How to Spot & Keep Great Employees:
Priceless Advice from Your Peers
By Patricia Amend
H
ow would you like to sit in a room with a group of your most knowledgeable peers from
the IHRSA universe, and hear a discussion of the most vital issues of the day, in the realm
of human resource management?
To give you just that opportunity this year, we have added a new feature to this report: IHRSA’s
first virtual Human Resources Roundtable discussion.
To get the dialogue going, we surveyed four CEOs and HR directors at top clubs across the
country. They are:
T Herb Lispman (HR), who is T Lauren Eller (LE), who is Human
now President & COO of the Resources Director at the Fitness
Stablewood Springs Resort in Formula, which has nine clubs in the
Hunt, Texas, as well as presi- greater Chicago area.
dent & CEO of The Health
Club Company, a consulting, management T Faith Pulis (FP), who is CEO of The
and development company specializing in Thoreau Club, in Concord, Massachu-
upscale health clubs and spas, based in setts, a legendary family club that has
Sugar Land, Texas. He is well known for been serving its market for genera-
having served as general manager at a tions—since its founding in 1951.
number of other clubs including, The
Houstonian Club in Houston, the Green T Donna Russell (DR), who is Director
Valley Athletic Club in Las Vegas, the of Human Resources at Fitcorp, which
Cascade Club in Vail, Colorado, and the has 11 clubs in the greater Boston area.
Valley