What’s your career journey been like up until now? 

After graduating from university with a degree in Psychology, I went straight into a Sales role at a Business Psychology company. I was there for 9.5 years and it was only in my last year there, around 2.5 years ago, that I decided to complete my PT qualifications on the side of it so I had something else to focus on other than work. A few months after completing my course I decided to take voluntary redundancy from that job and following that spent 6 months as a freelance personal trainer which included coming here to cover some classes. When I was doing my course it was never my intention to be in this industry full time, but when I left my job I decided to take the risk and luckily it paid off, as I have now been here full time for just over 1.5 years.

What does a typical day working here look like for you? 

We work shifts, so using my 6am-2pm as an example my day will start at 6am with a walk round of the gym, doing daily checks and making sure that everything is in order after the night. The gym is open 24/7 and due to Sky having lots of shift workers we do get staff coming in to use the gym during the night.

Once the checks have been done and signed off, I will then get ready for my morning classes I teach, I normally teach 1 or 2 classes a morning depending on the day. After classes are done then depending on the day I may have a programme, a welcome tour for new potential members, or will spend time helping and interacting with members on the gym floor. At 9am, whoever is on the same shift will then spend some time tidying the gym floor before going on a break.

From 10-11 it is a fairly quiet time in the gym, so a good chance to get on with any admin which needs doing. Admin in my role involves writing up programmes, planning classes/any events or challenges, anything involving team admin e.g drawing up rotas, helping my manager out with anything which needs doing and making sure that we are constantly coming up with ways to make sure we are giving the best service as a team that we can. Throughout the day we will always have people coming to us for lost property, to open a locker etc, so there is always something to be doing!

When lunchtime hits I can be sure that the time between 12 and 2pm will fly. I usually spend that time either teaching a class, doing a programme, a welcome tour and making sure I am available at some point during that time on the gym floor to give members help and advice.

If you’ve been here over one year, how have you made a difference in your role?

Making sure there is more structure to it so I know exactly what I am meant to be doing and when and getting smarter at using my time more efficiently

What’s been your proudest moment since working here?

Being promoted to Senior Fitness Advisor in Jan

What’s the most enjoyable thing about your job?

Running all my classes – I absolutely love teaching classes. Someone could come into lunchtime class feeling stressed from the morning and 45 mins later leave the class feeling like a completely different person and it’s always nice to know you play a part in that. Also I love knowing that I am playing a part in helping someone improve themselves physically and mentally through exercise.

Describe your work/life balance?

One great thing about this job is that it is only Monday-Friday, which is very rare for a gym job, so it tends to be quite easy to maintain a good work/life balance. A lot of people are shocked when I tell them I start work at 6am pretty much every day during the week, but when I tell them I finish at 2pm, so have the whole rest of the day, it suddenly doesn’t seem so bad!

What advice would you give to others trying to develop their career?

If you are someone who is thinking about moving industries, I would 100% say just go for it. Try not to spend too much time thinking about it, as it can become very easy to talk yourself out of it and find reasons not to do it. Find out what you need to get there e.g qualifications and just go for it. Look at all the areas within that industry and try to narrow it down to what part you think you will enjoy the most and if in doubt ask someone for help to help you figure it out. For example for me, I have a corporate background, so decided I wanted to help and train people in a corporate environment as I feel I can relate.

An interesting fact/something no one else knows about you?

You can see me for about 2 seconds in Spice World (the Spice Girls film)!