Turning Your Office Fitness Center Into an Asset
Kari Frontera
Most buildings have one, though it’s usually tucked into leftover basement space like a neglected piece of furniture. Such is the plight of corporate fitness center: Underutilized and musty smelling, they don’t tend to see much activity, and if they do, it’s hardly an enjoyable experience.
Fitness centers do not generate direct revenue and it is not the first thing tenants look for when leasing space. However, the fitness center can be an asset that sets your building apart from others for that very reason.
Fitness and wellness are now critical issues in corporations everywhere. Successful companies understand the correlation between healthy employees and productivity. Wellness plans are beginning to include fitness incentives in benefits packages. Corporate fitness centers can easily answer a need for a convenient workout option.
It’s time to move the corporate fitness center out of the basement and breathe some much needed life into this traditionally underutilized space. One reason that most people don’t use corporate facilities is they are uninspiring places, typically out of site and therefore out of mind.
Design Principle #1: Let there be light.
Natural lighting improves performance. As widely illustrated in studies ranging from academic performance to faster recovery times in hospitals, it is well know that natural light has a positive effect on the human body. Sunlight directly affects the levels of serotonin and the hormone melatonin in the body resulting in feeling calm, alert and reducing depression tendencies. Also, people are more drawn to facilities with natural light so locate the facility along the perimeter of the building with windows.
Design Principle #2: Show them what they are missing.
People are not comfortable entering fitness areas that they can’t see what is going on. Perceived safety and security are paramount to creating an enticing environment.
Provide a space where people can see the activity taking place inside without compromising users’ anonymity. Achieving a balance of transparency and privacy is important. Consider a design including translucent screens that you can see people inside and sense the activity, but not be able to identify the individuals.
And make sure the center is located on a well traveled path. No you may not put it in the basement.
Design Principle #3: Provide sturdy, well maintained equipment and provide a purpose to go.
You don’t have to purchase the most current state of the art equipment. There are many fitness sources that offer quality equipment on a leasing plan. This allows you to rotate in new equipment as well as have a maintenance plan in place.
Building owners often opt to buy the equipment outright because it is less expensive but when the equipment breaks it sits for a long period of time with no maintenance. That is when you start to lose your clientele, as they fall out of regular fitness routines.
In addition, you need to activate the space. Variety is critical in whether or not people stick with an exercise. Consider offering group exercise classes. It not only ties in the social aspect of exercise but it also encourages activity at specific times of the day. You may even find that some of your employees are actually already fitness instructors so your staffing needs may be easy to fill.
 |
Kari Frontera secretly desires to one day turn every workplace into a gym thus eliminating the excuse of not having the time/opportunity to fit in a workout. Believing that the world’s problems can be solved through sport, she strives to bring in an element of recreation to every project. Kari is the Southeast region’s practice area leader in Sports and is always willing to discuss the intricacies of recreation and fitness facilities. Contact her at kari_frontera@gensler.com. |
Reader Comments (12)
The typical gym smells of sweat soaked into carpet and tire rubber floors. Some gyms like this, they want the smell as gym rats love that environment.
But, at work you don't want that. Work is to be streamlined and organized. So you want to keep the space full of fresh air and keep it easy to clean. Don't use materials that suck in sweat and smell. We just did Stubhub.com in San Francisco and the whole office space has a feel of a fitness center. Employees love it.
One key to the success of a fitness center is management making it clear that it's not only okay to use the center, but *actively* encouraged. This is best done by example, but also by promotion campaigns and even internal fitness challenges.
With rising healthcare costs and rising obesity rates, no company can afford to implement only passive employee health benefits and hope things work out. Organizations have to get progressive and aggressive in this battle, and that definitely includes fitness centers for big companies, and for smaller companies, locating in buildings or on sites that provide shared facilities.
Regular all day use can have other benefits -- you don't need to size the gym and shower facilties for a three time a day peak load (before work, lunch and afterwork); but rather for an average load. The facility is used (and therefore safer) more hours of the day. The equipment count can be based on average use rather than peak use. And, employees have the option of using the facility at a time that really works for their bodies rather than a proscribed time. I've personally found that a 2 pm workout does wonders for that slumpy time in the mid-afternoon.
I agree with opening up the views as well so taht one can sense the energy- I find this to be majorly important to get more people to participate, esepcially in group fitness classes. I've seen too many studios that are closed off and that cuts off the energy and the motivation to try new classes.
I usually crab about fitness center fees at hotels, but I'd pay to use this one...and the next time I travel to this city, I'll be sure to stay at this hotel. There's really a payoff for the owner to do this right, whether it's a hotel or an office building looking to attract tenants and command strong lease rates.
I'm a tall 6'4" and was in a L.A. hotel. The fitness center was great, except when I got on the elliptical. My head got within inches of the ceiling and it really effected my workout. Luckily when I realized it was a dropped ceiling I was able to just move the paneling aside so there was an open spot above my head. People looked at me like I was crazy but I sure got a more comfortable workout in.