Operating since 2012, Fitter Body Ladies is a chain of boot camp-style gyms with 15 locations across England and Wales. Built on the three principles of fitness, nutrition, and mindset, their mission is to help women over the age of 30 work out in an environment where they feel comfortable and supported.

The challenge

We spoke with Julie Selfe — CEO and owner of Fitter Body Ladies locations in Wellingborough, Kettering, and Newport Pagnell — about the staffing-related challenges that prompted her to look for a staff scheduling solution.

With three full-time trainers at each of her locations plus two part-time staff and a social media manager, Julie was originally spending 2-3 hours every week managing her team’s rota — time that could have been better spent elsewhere.

“My time's more valuable than sitting there writing Excel spreadsheets every week,” Julie told us via a Zoom call. “Even when you get it right, somebody says they can’t work and you have to change it.”

Then there was the constant headache of communicating shift changes to her team whenever they occurred:

“I’d share the trainers’ shifts on a WhatsApp group and they’d copy their shifts into their diaries,” Julie said. “But sometimes they’d write them down wrong or the times would get changed later on.”

This led to instances when more than one trainer showed up for the same session, and even one occasion when the trainer she’d scheduled failed to appear due to a mixup with the rota.

“I just thought, ‘Okay, it's taking too much time and I can't have that happening again’.”

That was when Julie discovered RotaCloud.

The solution

After taking advantage of our 30-day free trial, Julie rolled RotaCloud out at all three of her gyms. Straight out of the blocks, she found that she was able to plan her teams’ rotas in a fraction of the time it used to take her.

“I tend to do six months’ rotas in advance,” she said. “I sat down in December and copied my rota all the way through to the end of July. It takes two minutes now rather than two hours a week.”

Julie’s staff are now also completely in the loop regarding changes to their schedule thanks to RotaCloud’s automatic notifications.

“My team have all got the app on their phone, so they know where they should be in the morning,” Julie told us. “They haven't got to log in on a laptop to check their shifts — they all have it on their phones.”

Managing her team’s annual leave has also become much easier.

“It’s so easy to do holidays,” Julie explained. “I used to have everyone’s holiday on two great big wall planners, but when we got up to six coaches it just didn’t work.”

“Doing it on RotaCloud is much simpler — staff can see on the app if somebody else has already booked off the day they want.”

Ultimately though, it’s the time-savings that have been the biggest benefit for Julie and Fitter Body Ladies.

“It’s freed me up to grow my business,” she explained. “I know that I can spend two hours doing something far more productive for my business than doing two weeks’ rota.”

Glad we could help you to get your rotas in shape, Julie!