Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) are more critical than ever to maximize your total impact and growth potential - whether you’re a studio owner, operator, or fitness instructor. Simply put, DEI is the right thing to do — but we have even more good news for you: a strong DEI culture is proven to increase profitability, empower your staff, improve your client access and experience, and positively impact your community.

This year, our CEO & Founder Amira Polack was selected speak on multiple panels to unveil the toolbox Struct Club has used to propel DEI in our industry, including at the 2023 IDEA World Studio & Club Summit powered by Boutique Fitness Solutions. Together with Desiree Guilliard-Young, Chief Operating Officer & Board Member at Sanctuary Fitness (a FitLab company), and Beth Bishop, Founder & Owner of The Phoenix Effect, we’ve distilled a handful of essential practices to help you grow through DEI:

From left to right: Katie Philipp (BFS), Desiree Guilliard-Young (Sanctuary Fitness, a FitLab company), Beth Bishop (The Phoenix Effect), & Amira Polack (Struct Club)

1. Make DEI a Core Value

Core values ground and guide how you operate. Business owners, operators, and coaches must consistently make decisions with imperfect information under uncertain conditions. While each situation is unique, our core values frame how we handle these situations: they help us evaluate the best options for our business and community. They shape how we hire, how we market, and how we run our classes - even down to how we program music and what words we use as we train.

If it isn’t already, make DEI one of your business’s core values. Make your commitment clear, and amplify these values across your marketing content. Doing this allows stakeholders to know what you stand for, what they are part of, and how they can collectively help uphold these principles.

With every decision, ask: “Does this uphold our core values?” “How does this strengthen DEI in our business and community?”

2. Roadmap DEI Victories

Roadmap short, medium, and long-term DEI goals to ensure that they actually happen. Build your list of activities that you know you need to accomplish to advance diverse, equitable, and inclusive practices in your organization. Put some time on the calendar with real deadlines to give these initiatives priority. As you create your plan, Ask and Amplify - rather than assuming perspectives and imposing a path forward that doesn’t include a variety of perspectives; proactively seek diverse perspectives and encourage your team and community to express their needs.

For example, ways to roadmap diverse, equitable, and inclusive hiring include:

Have you considered recruiting teammates from your own community members? If you have, you may be surprised that many operators & owners haven’t considered including members in their hiring processes. In Desiree’s case, she was initially a Sanctuary member before joining their team and ascending to leadership: she had a personal connection, had already bought into the business as a client, was there for the best reasons, and already served as a brand ambassador. Engage passionate members in conversations and as you’re hiring, consider these individuals as viable staff candidates too. After all, they do represent at least a segment of your customer base! Along the way, mentor your employees to grow, and find ways to promote them when possible.

Outside of your organization, seek external resources and build relationships with instructors across the industry to expand your connections when hiring opportunities arise.

Next, class programming can bring DEI into the company’s core product (or not) - this is where the rubber hits the road. At Struct Club this is a core focus of our business…

3. Shape your Product through Values: Workouts, Music, & Coaching

Think back to workout classes you’ve attended. Was there ever a time you felt alienated or excluded? Why? Was it the exercise sequence, coaching (or lack thereof), musical choices, or a combination of factors? At Struct Club, a feeling of exclusion and alienation is what we’ve found to be a top motivator for new studio owners and operators to get started -- to break the cycle and welcome more people into fitness who’ve previously been excluded.

Pay close attention to your workout and music playlist formula - do you have a formula? Do these exhibit DEI values?

Below, we’ve included a worksheet to help you connect your values with the music choices in your classes. At Struct Club, we consider this exercise essential in walking the talk when it comes to DEI.

In addition, here are some tips that helped change the game for Desiree’s & Beth’s businesses:

Multilingual hiring and instruction expands your product offering and audience reach. It can deepen your relationships with staff and clients, and further propel your DEI efforts overall.
Prioritize non-binary language and pronoun declaration. This approach will not only bolster DEI, but also strengthen your organization’s connection with Millennial and Gen Z clients and staff, who increasingly self-identify as more gender diverse than prior generations.

Importantly, we would be remiss to assume that your DEI conversations and initiatives will be entirely smooth sailing without any pushback:

4. Take Discomfort in Stride

Discomfort comes hand-and-hand with change - most of the time, most people don’t like most change! But even beyond this conventional truism, the pushback and counter-movement to DEI is very real, making even more urgent the need to keep advancing diversity, equity, and inclusivity through our day-to-day practices. The courage and resourcefulness to commit to your change roadmap, to learn through trial and error, and to keep moving through (and even embracing!) uncertainty are deeply needed to solve real problems and build a fitness business with true social impact.

Make DEI a Way of Life

DEI is not just a popular acronym, but a way of life. The strongest path to achieving this way of life is to:

Ground your organization in DEI as a Core Value.
Visualize and roadmap short and long term DEI victories - across hiring, marketing, programming, & beyond.
Directly incorporate DEI into your workout classes, including music & language choices.
Discomfort will happen - take it in stride.

Let’s partner to propel your business - reach us at hello@structclub.com and on social @structclub!

4 DEI Essentials for Boutique Fitness Studios