For gyms and fitness clubs

Gym rota software: the desk on every opening hour, a name against every class, the peaks covered

A club is busy from six to nine and from five to nine, and quiet in between. The desk has to be staffed from the first swipe to the last, the floor needs instructors at the peaks, and every class on the timetable needs a name against it or it does not happen. InShift builds the week from shift types for the desk, the floor and each class, pays freelance instructors per class, keeps the duty manager on every shift, and shows the club manager on Monday which class next week has nobody yet.

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Two peaks, a quiet middle, and a timetable that is really a rota

A club of twenty opens at six. The early crowd trains before work, spin is at half past six, and by nine the floor is empty until the lunch regulars. From five it fills again: HIIT at six, yoga at seven, three instructors on the floor and two at the desk until the last member leaves at ten. The desk is two shifts with a handover at two, the floor is an early, a day and a peak, and every class is its own slot with an instructor who is often freelance and paid per class. A duty manager holds the keys on every shift, self-employed PTs come and go with their own clients, and the weekend runs on shorter hours with the peak in the morning.

The trouble is that the club has two documents that both claim to be the truth: the class timetable on the website and the staff rota in the office. When they disagree, members turn up for a spin class that has no instructor, or an instructor turns up for a class that was taken off the timetable. The early desk shift is swapped by text at ten at night. Freelance instructors invoice for classes nobody recorded. And the hours of the desk and the floor are added up in a spreadsheet at the end of the month, with the swaps missing.

Below is how a club of twenty looks in InShift: the timetable as shift types with days, a weekday as a table of who is where, a role for the duty manager and one for the freelancer, and the duty manager’s own screen in the app.

The timetable

Every class is a shift type with its time and its days, and a name against it

Shift types belong to the club, and each carries its hours and the days it runs on. The desk has “Early 05:45–14:00” and “Late 14:00–22:15”; the floor has “Early 06:00–10:00”, “Day 10:00–17:00” and “Peak 16:30–21:30”; and every class is a type of its own: “Spin 06:30–07:15” on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, “HIIT 18:00–18:45”, “Yoga 19:00–20:00”. A type can belong to a position, so a class is offered to instructors only and the desk never sees it. The planner offers each type on its days, and the week is built by putting a name on every slot; a class without a name is an empty slot, visible a week ahead.

  • “General shifts” for the whole club, and a shift schedule under each position: desk, floor, classes
  • “Days” on every type, so spin exists on Monday, Wednesday and Friday and nowhere else
  • A colour per type, so the week reads at a glance: desk, floor, class
  • A class without an instructor becomes an “Open shift”: every instructor gets it, the manager picks
The admin panel screen by screen

A weekday at a club of twenty: who is where at each hour

People on shift in each band of the day. The peaks take three on the floor and two at the desk; the middle runs on one of each.

Who06–0909–1212–1717–2121–22
Desk11121
Floor21131
Classes21·3·
Duty manager11111
Cleaner·1··1

Desk shifts “Early 05:45–14:00” and “Late 14:00–22:15”, with a third person on “Peak 16:30–21:30”; floor shifts “Early 06:00–10:00”, “Day 10:00–17:00” and “Peak 16:30–21:30”. The classes row counts classes in the band: spin and a stretch class before work, three in the evening. The duty manager is a position and a role: one on every shift, with the keys. Saturday and Sunday run 08:00–20:00 with the peak in the morning.

Roles

Duty manager, club manager, freelance instructor: a role for each, and what each one sees

The “Access rights” tab holds the roles, and a role is a set of rights: whose rota the person can open and edit, whom they see in the team list, whether they see pay, whose requests they approve. A duty manager gets “Edit rota” and “Approve substitutions” for their own club and settles the swaps on shift; the club manager gets everything; a freelance instructor sees their own classes and nothing else; the accountant gets “View payroll” and no rota. Every right has four widths, “None”, “Own”, “My locations” and “Entire network”, and “Add role” makes a new one from scratch.

  • “View rota” and “Edit rota”: a duty manager edits their own club, a regional manager all of them
  • “Approve time-off” and “Approve substitutions” by location, so the duty manager on shift decides
  • “View team”, “Manage employees”, “View payroll”, “Manage payroll”: each on its own width
  • The roles in the demo are “Manager”, “Director”, “Accountant” and “Team Member”; you name yours

On shift

The duty manager’s screen in the app: the week, the gaps, the requests waiting

The duty manager is on the floor, and the app has a screen for them. The home screen shows the week with the number of shifts each day and how many are still without a name, who is without the app and cannot see their rota, and what needs attention: requests waiting with time off and swaps counted, open shifts nobody has taken yet, the day the published rota runs out. “Planner” and “Team” are one tap away, and an instructor who has just dropped a class can be called or messaged from their card.

  • The week strip with shifts per day and the unassigned ones marked
  • “Needs attention”: requests waiting, open shifts without a taker, where the schedule ends
  • “1 person without the app”: the new instructor who still gets the rota by word of mouth
  • “Planner” with “Publish” from the phone, and “Team” with “Call” and “Message” on every card
The app screen by screen

Moving a club onto InShift

An afternoon for a club of twenty, the timetable included.

  1. 1

    Sign up and the club

    Email or Google. The club is a location; a second site is a second location, and “All locations” shows both on one screen.

  2. 2

    Positions and the timetable

    Reception, fitness instructor, class instructor, personal trainer, duty manager. Shift types under each position: the desk’s “Early” and “Late”, the floor’s “Peak”, and a type per class with its time and its days.

  3. 3

    The team and the pay models

    “Add multiple” pastes the team with a position; per hour for the desk and the floor, “Per shift” for the class instructors, a salary for the managers, “Unpaid” for the self-employed PTs. “Invite team” prints a code and a QR for everyone who has not joined yet.

  4. 4

    The first week and publish

    The desk, the floor and the classes, then “Publish”. Next week is “Copy last week”: the timetable stays, only the names change.

Frequently asked questions

Can a class be a shift, so the instructor is paid per class?▾

Yes. A class is a shift type with its own time, “Spin 06:30–07:15”, tied to the instructor position and to the days it runs. The instructor’s pay model on the “Pay” tab can be “Per shift”, a fixed amount per class whatever its length, or “Shift price”, where each class type carries its own price. “Payroll” then counts the classes taught in the period, and “Export to Excel” gives the freelancer’s invoice a number to match.

What happens when an instructor drops a class at short notice?▾

The class becomes an “Open shift”: the manager presses “Offer to the team”, every instructor with that position gets a push, and under “Requests, manager picks” the manager chooses among those who pressed “I want it”. Or the instructor finds their own cover through “Substitute”, and “Request rules” decide whether the manager has to approve. Either way the rota is the timetable, updated the moment the swap goes through.

Do personal trainers who rent the floor go on the rota?▾

If you want the desk to know when they are in. A PT is a person on the “Employees” list with the pay model “Unpaid”, so their floor hours show on the rota and in “Who else is working”, and “Payroll” counts nothing for them. Employed PTs get an hourly rate or a salary like anyone else.

How does the desk cover six to ten without anyone working sixteen hours?▾

With two shift types under the reception position, “Early 05:45–14:00” and “Late 14:00–22:15”, and a third person on “Peak 16:30–21:30” when the queue at the desk is longest. The overlap at two is the handover. Weekend hours are their own types that exist on Saturday and Sunday only.

How does the team see the rota?▾

In the InShift app on iPhone and Android, after joining with the invite code and their own email. Each person sees their own shifts, “Who else is working”, their requests and their hours on “Stats”, and “My schedule in the phone calendar” puts the classes into the phone’s own calendar. A duty manager’s role opens the manager’s screens in the same app.

What does it cost for a club of twenty?▾

Free for one location and up to 10 people. Beyond that it is a subscription per active person on the “Employees” list, with locations, payroll and the team app included. The numbers are on the pricing page.

Get the whole club on one rota

Positions, the timetable and the first week take an afternoon, and every instructor sees their classes in the app the same day.

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