Working at Bally Total Fitness — Reviews by Employees

Sean trains under the table and Debbie will cut classes quick but try to blame your

Bally offers competitive pay for the fitness industry which I believe is notoriously underpaid. However, management is shady. Promotions are granted based upon who you are friends with. If you are female, forget about it. It is nearly impossible to ever gain respect as a General or Area Manager. The company changes its strategy and management expectations on a monthly basis, and has made so many poor financial decisions that they cannot afford to fix a broken treadmill or a torn yoga mat. Payroll corrections, if ever fixed, take months. Pay for personal trainers is so hard to understand and explain, who knows if the the company has been scheming money from the personal training program for years. Quotas are reasonable. Sales commissions for membership average $5. Where is the motivation to sell? Corporate Bally is unreliable and full of incompetent people who visit the clubs on a yearly basis, pretend they care what is going on, say they will make positive changes, and you never hear from them again. I would stay clear of Bally. The pay benefits don't outweigh the shady practices, inconsistency from upper management, or old dirty facility that you will be working in.

The Ballys I used to work for is now closed, and I you havent heard lately, they are going in and out of bankruptcy on a regular basis, talk about job security. Oh and fuck management at Ballys.

Was a VERY good job when I started as an Ops Manager. I had over a decade of experience in the industry and they left me alone to fix the mess they created. Pay was great for the industry and more than fair for what they asked of you. Then, when their financial problems (shady book-keeping)/ past business' practices caught up with them, things went down hill fast. They made me get rid of most of my staff, so instead of fixing the club THEY ruined, I spent my day cleaning and running the front desk. Don't mind doing my part, but the company needs to commit to running quality facilities.

They offered a decent benefit package, but you didn't qualify for full benefits for 9 months. Again, pay was above average for the position.

My advice to Bally's: get away from the sales mentality. You cannot sell yourself out of the problems you created with bad service, dirty/broken/obselete facilities. Re-tool the company to focus on customer and upgrade your facilites & equipment. Start getting rid of your dead weight management. Most of the GM's (sales managers) are corrupt and only out for themselves. They should fire almost every manager at the district level and up. Replace them with people outside your company that know how to run a quality facility. CUT YOUR SALES STAFF BY 70% and place the savings back into your customer service, maintenance, janitorial and training departments.

Unfortunately for them, I think it's too late for this company. They will be a victim of their own inept management. Of course they will never smarten up to that fact.

I worked for Bally Total Fitness for a year and I have to say....if the pay were better, I really think I would have liked my job more. The pay is absolutely horrible and insufficient for the amount of work that is required. I held a couple different positions at a couple different clubs and the only way for anybody to make a dollar is by selling a membership. Other than that, you're going to be very sorry about your pay check. Bally's tries to brain wash you into only thinking about hitting your quota for the day, and if you don't, get ready for them to drill you for an hour on how much you suck. On top of that, they have you doing things that aren't even in your job description like being a janitor and cleaning up after people who don't know how to dispose toilet paper or flush toilets. And good luck trying to get promoted as everything is completely political and you basically have to be your manager's BEST friend. All the General Managers by the way are selfish and love to take credit for everything you do, even if you're just a receptionist, lol.

It is a great way to meet people though and I enjoyed most of my co-workers during my time there. But other than that, you're going to wind up being stressed, tired and truly eating, breathing and living Bally Total Fitness 24/7 once you're hired.

I worked for Bally Total fitness in mulitple positions. Let me just say that you will regret ever working here and resent the person who hired you. To start you will never get a correct paycheck. You will have so many different managers due to turnover that you will never get promoted. I had a great experience helping the clients there, as well as hustling money out of the gym. But, I can tell you that you will learn how to be a crook working here. You will learn to lie, lie and lie some more to make sure you meet your quota to keep your job. You will work for no pay. Nor will you ever see your upper management who thinks everyday is a great Bally Total Fitness day. DO NOT WORK HERE OR BUY A MEMBERSHIP.

I worked for Bally for several years, holding management and non management positions. The company tells you to pride yourself on customer service, yet will never take time to help the customer. Memberships are confusing, unclear to staff and members, and rates change and increase with little or no explanation. The equipment is old and poorly maintained. There is only over night cleaning which leaves staff responsible for any day time issues. Upper management is shady, inconsistent, and politics are always involved with promotions. Pay changes often and usually not for the better without warning. Bally sets themselves up for failure:no delivery on their promises to members, only going after the bottom dollar and never recognizing that keeping hundreds of existing members happy is much more important than generating just one new sale from a lying sales representative. I wouldn't work for Bally, all gyms cannot be as scandalous as them. I am sure there are other gyms in your area paying minimum wage that would be willing to hire you if you are going into a job in fitness.

Bally Total Fitness is the WORST company in the entire world. I worked for the company for 4 years. I got promoted to an Operations Manager, and then they ELIMINATED my position, even though I was "The best ops manager the zone vice president had ever seen" I still lost my position because Bally was trying to save money. As if that was not bad enough, they changed my pay to LESS than when I started with the company 4 years ago. Bally does not care AT ALL about their employees. They never get a "good job" , all we get is ridiculed, and talked down to constantly, with no positive reinforcement, EVER. The upper management is horrible, and illiterate. Bally thought it was a good idea to get rid of paper towels and housekeepers, and puts all of the cleaning on the employees. Now every day I get the joy of cleaning up human fecal matter, blood and piss, being the only female employee I get to clean the women's locker room, and twice the amount of work when I was getting paid $50,000 a year. In conclusion, Ballys sucks.

If you're thinking of becoming a personal trainer at Bally's, read this first: Whatever the fitness manager tells you during the interviews is PURE bullshit, the perfect schedule, the great pay, huge clientele, training...it's all BULLSHIT. The only trainers that make money is the ones that have been there the longest, and thus the ones who get served with the best clients from their FM. Everyone else you're out of luck, don't count on this to be a steady paycheck, and with their new payscale (LOWER), at the end of the day you make literally nothing. So take this for what it's worth, but I learned the hard way. There's some great people working there but money is money. If you sell a session at $49 and don't even keep $15 out of it (assuming you're not certified), then what's the point.

I dunno what people hate about ballys but i was a great sales person. i worked there for 2 yrs and i had a blast. the base pay was low but my commision was great. i sold to everyone. also being the fact that im at a gym there is a limitless amount of women you see on a daily basis and i sure had my fair share . when i got promoted to Assistant Manager my pay rate went up a lil and now if u hit budget you also get a bonus.. i made alot of money off and on the books .. i accomplished all that by the time i was 20 yrs old...

location was perfect. i had the same schedule for 2 years.i was off fridays and sundays. perfect.

i ruined it by gettin caught doing schemes... actually i got snitched on..fucking asshole