When implementing onsite fitness at a new location, a common concern (both from a fitness and a financial perspective) is a facility’s low utilization rate. You renovated the room, you bought the equipment, you sent the company-wide announcement email … so, why isn’t anybody using it?

In a word: buy-in. We explored the barriers of Cost, Time, and Knowledge which keep people away, yet overcoming those barriers is worth nothing if you can’t gain buy-in from your employees. It’s absolutely crucial to the success of any onsite fitness facility.

Consider your target audience. Consider their fitness goals and where they are on their fitness journey. Are your employees young and active, or middle-aged and sedentary (or young and sedentary or anywhere else on the continuum of fitness)? Do they want to gain strength? Lose weight? Improve mobility? Wherever they are in their personal fitness journey, whatever their goals, you need to meet them where they are to gain their buy-in.

The average office worker in the United States spends 70% of their time sitting. Sedentary behaviors lead to a host of negative health risks, increased risk of depression, and reduced attention span and productivity. This is common knowledge, yet improving fitness isn’t as simple as saying, ‘go exercise.’ Only 15% of the US population regularly goes to the gym.

Why?

To be blunt, gyms can be intimidating. For someone who has rarely darkened the doorway of a gym, the vast array of equipment and weights are an alien world. The gym explorer’s perceived possibility of embarrassment is high. What if they look silly? What if they hurt themselves? What if someone further along in their fitness journey judges this newbie who doesn’t know the difference between a deadlift and a power clean?

What they need is a native guide. They need someone to demystify this strange new world of kettlebells and medicine balls and help them navigate through it safely and effectively.

That’s where an onsite fitness instructor comes in. At MC Corporate Wellness, we provide onsite classes tailored to your employees wherever they are on their fitness journey. Those just starting out can learn the new language of fitness. Those returning after an absence can gain new skills. Dedicated gym goers can be challenged to reach higher goals.

Fitness should be fun and accessible for everyone. It doesn’t matter if they can lift fifty pounds or only five. One of our mottos is, ‘Fitness Happened.’ They took the challenge, crossed the threshold, and did more than spend 70% of their time sitting. And they did so because someone was there to welcome them in. That’s a success story. The first success of more to come.

Wasn’t that your goal when you created your onsite fitness center, to provide opportunities for holistic health improvement? By providing a coach to show your employees the ropes and kettlebells of fitness, you can demystify this strange new world. You can gain their buy-in.

You can create the place where fitness happened.