The Empuls Glossary

Glossary of Human Resources Management and Employee Benefit Terms

Fitness Incentive

Fitness incentives have emerged as powerful tools to motivate and reward individuals for maintaining an active and healthy lifestyle. These incentives come in diverse forms, from financial rewards and recognition to personalized fitness plans and access to exclusive facilities.

Who creates a quality fitness incentive plan?

A quality fitness incentive plan is typically created by the management team of a gym or fitness studio. This could include the gym owner, fitness manager, or a dedicated team responsible for member engagement and retention.

The creation of a fitness incentive plan involves understanding the needs and motivations of the gym’s members, designing incentives that align with these motivations, and implementing the plan in a way that is easy for members to understand and participate in.

Listen, recognize, award, and retain your employees with our Employee engagement software

What is a fitness incentive?

A fitness incentive is a reward system implemented by gyms, fitness studios, or wellness programs to motivate members and enhance their engagement. These incentives can take various forms and are given to members for completing certain activities that contribute to the brand’s growth.

What are the benefits of fitness incentives?

The benefits of fitness incentives:

‍

Promote customer loyalty: Fitness incentives can help existing clients feel more valued and appreciated, which can foster a stronger emotional connection with your brand. This can help retain members and stabilize revenues.
‍Attract new customers: Fitness incentive programs can help upscale sales and generate new leads. Offering attractive incentives can make a fitness business stand out from the competition and attract new customers.
‍Emotional connection: Fitness incentives can help create an emotional connection between the members and the fitness business. When members feel emotionally connected to a brand, they are more likely to stay loyal and recommend the brand to others.
‍Cascading effect: Fitness incentives can have a cascading effect. When members are rewarded for their efforts, they are likely to share their positive experiences with others, which can attract new members.
‍Boost participation rates: Effective wellness program incentives can boost participation rates in corporate wellness programs.
‍Improve talent recruitment and acquisition: Fitness incentives can improve talent recruitment and acquisition. When a fitness business is known for its attractive incentives, it can attract top talent in the industry.
‍Promote lifelong healthy habits: Fitness incentives can promote lifelong healthy habits among members. By rewarding members for healthy behaviors, fitness incentives can encourage members to maintain these behaviors in the long term.
‍Enhance member experience: Fitness incentives enhance the member experience. They encourage members to stay committed to their fitness goals and foster a sense of community within the gym.

What are the types of fitness incentives?

The types of fitness incentives are

‍

Reward points: This system allows members to earn points for participating in gym activities. The points can be earned for attending classes, referring friends, or participating in gym events.
‍Discounts: Offering discounts on membership renewals or other services can incentivize members to stay loyal to the gym. For example, gyms can offer a discounted membership rate for referrals, provide a free month of membership for a certain number of successful referrals, or offer free classes for every successful referral.
‍Freebies: Free gifts or services can be offered as a token of appreciation for the members’ loyalty. These can include free incentives for gym members which can be a great motivational tool and a way to increase gym customer loyalty.
‍Referral bonuses: Members can be incentivized to bring in new members through referral bonuses. A well-thought-out referral program offers an incentive for both the referral and the referee. It should be at a low cost to your business.
‍Fitness challenges: Organizing fitness challenges can foster a sense of camaraderie and friendly competition among members. These challenges can be varied and tailored to meet the interests and fitness levels of all members. They can include monthly fitness challenges, team challenges, fitness bingo, step challenges, and weight loss challenges.
‍Special offers: Special holiday offers or early renewal incentives can also be a part of the fitness incentive program. These can include Valentine’s Day partner workouts, heart health month activities, love your body campaigns, and more.

When should fitness incentives be provided?

Fitness incentives should be provided on the following occasions

‍

New member onboarding: When a new member joins, providing fitness incentives can help them get started on their fitness journey and make them feel welcomed. This could include setting SMART goals for long-term (12 months), medium-term (3 months), and short-term (1 month) achievements.
‍Member milestones: Fitness incentives can be given when members reach certain milestones, such as completing a certain number of classes, achieving a fitness goal, or celebrating their membership anniversary.

For example, you could offer free class passes as rewards for achieving certain milestones, or provide gym merchandise as rewards for members who earn a certain number of points.
‍Special events or challenges: During special events, competitions, or fitness challenges, incentives can be used to encourage participation and reward effort. These challenges can foster camaraderie and friendly competition among members.
‍Low engagement periods: If there are periods when engagement is typically low (like holiday seasons), fitness incentives can be used to motivate members to stay active.

For example, you could introduce a point system or decide milestones. Once a member runs 100 miles on the treadmills they get a gift card or a small prize.
‍Membership renewal: Offering fitness incentives at the time of membership renewal can encourage members to continue their association with the gym.

For example, you could offer a discounted rate for members who renew their membership before expiration, provide an additional month free for early renewals, offer a free upgrade to a premium membership for a month as an incentive for early renewal, or provide discounts on gym merchandise for early renewals.

Employee pulse surveys:

These are short surveys that can be sent frequently to check what your employees think about an issue quickly. The survey comprises fewer questions (not more than 10) to get the information quickly. These can be administered at regular intervals (monthly/weekly/quarterly).

One-on-one meetings:

Having periodic, hour-long meetings for an informal chat with every team member is an excellent way to get a true sense of what’s happening with them. Since it is a safe and private conversation, it helps you get better details about an issue.

eNPS:

eNPS (employee Net Promoter score) is one of the simplest yet effective ways to assess your employee's opinion of your company. It includes one intriguing question that gauges loyalty. An example of eNPS questions include: How likely are you to recommend our company to others? Employees respond to the eNPS survey on a scale of 1-10, where 10 denotes they are ‘highly likely’ to recommend the company and 1 signifies they are ‘highly unlikely’ to recommend it.

Based on the responses, employees can be placed in three different categories:

Promoters
Employees who have responded positively or agreed.
Detractors
Employees who have reacted negatively or disagreed.
Passives
Employees who have stayed neutral with their responses.

Quick Links

Employee Engagement solutions

Blog

Ebooks & Guides

Glossaries

View All Integrations