Life Time Fitness Attracts Qualified Candidate Through the Use of Recruitment Videos
Life Time Fitness, Inc. (NYSE:LTM) operates distinctive and large multi-use sports and athletic, professional fitness, family recreation and resort and spa centers. The company also provides consumers with personal training consultation, full-service spas and cafes, corporate wellness programs, health and nutrition education, the healthy lifestyle magazine Experience Life, athletic events, and nutritional products.
As Life Time Fitness continues national expansion, they need to grow awareness to increase membership. They needed to find innovative ways to attract sales and revenue generating talent. Life Time chose to work with Employee Continuum to create recruitment videos, starring current employees, to tell a compelling employment experience story. Life Time's goals were to attract more candidates, while improving the quality of candidates.
The videos are prominently displayed on Life Time's career page on their web site. Prospective candidates can view each video to get a realistic look into the life of a Life Time associate and decide if they would like to be a team member. The videos give prospective candidates the option of self-selecting before they begin the application process. In less than one year, the recruitment videos produced an increase of manager applications by 30%, personal trainer applications by 29% and sales associate applications by 7%. Moreover, the videos directly relate to an increase in the quality of candidates demonstrated by the increase in the number of candidates passing the pre-screening qualifications; 110% for manager candidates, 28% for sales associate candidates, and 27% for personal trainer candidates. Kendall Harrell, Manager, Organizational Development will continue to watch how the recruitment videos affect long-term goals, such as customer service metrics and employee turnover. "The cost of turnover in sales, personal training and management can be immense. If the videos can reduce turnover even by single-digit percentages, it's paid for itself."
This case study is based on Marketing Sherpa’s article printed August 23, 2007, “How to Add Video to Your Site to Recruit Star Talent.”
SUMMARY:
We all know how hard it is to find the right staff. Since video is being used in so many marketing tactics these days, why not add it to your recruiting efforts, too?
Life Time Fitness wanted to attract better job candidates and reduce turnover. They tapped staff members to star in videos for some of their hardest-to-fill positions. The new approach is working. They're seeing 30% more job applications and up to 110% increase in the number of candidates who pass the pre-screening process.
CHALLENGE
Life Time Fitness knew that a strong brand attracts customers. Their biggest concern was what if their brand didn't’t have much pull with prospective employees?
“In most conversations I had related to recruiting, people said, ‘I like the company,’ but they were thinking as a consumer, not as an employee. People were fairly indifferent about Life Time Fitness as an employer, and that’s almost as bad as not liking us,” says Kendall Harrell, Manager, Organizational Development.
For Harrell and his team, the company’s growth depended on finding the right people to fill critical positions at the corporate headquarters and in its health clubs. They needed to establish an identity that would attract more candidates. At the same time, they wanted to improve the quality of those job applications to save the recruiting staff time and effort in finding potential employees who were the best match.
CAMPAIGN
Teaming up with Employee Continuum, Life Time Fitness decided short recruitment videos were the solution that would help convey the company’s employment experience. And by making current employees the stars of the videos, they could highlight the kind of prospects they were looking for and describe the most important duties of each position.
The team followed the six steps below to create three job branding videos:
Step #1. Identified key jobs for recruitment push
First, they targeted the positions that were most important to the continued growth of the company. Those positions were:
- Personal trainers and other fitness personnel
- Membership sales associates
- General Managers
"If you look at the critical roles in our company, it's around fitness, member acquisition and retention. Your need incredibly strong leadership to manage those individuals and support brand initiatives as you go into new markets." says Kendall Harrell, Manager, Organizational Development.
Step #2. Outlined corporate employment profile
To develop videos that would attract the best candidates, Employee Continuum assembled an in-house panel from Life Time Fitness to define the unique aspects of working for the company.
The panel included business leaders who didn't often interact with each other, such as:
- HR and recruiting personnel
- Marketing executives
- Managers in charge of specific job groups
- Current employees in the target positions
Following a detailed Creative Brief produced by Employee Continuum, the panel started by outlining their overall "employment brand" – what makes working at Life Time Fitness different from other organizations. That employment brand centered on characteristics, including:
- A fast-growing company
- Commitment to a healthy lifestyle
- Excellent facilities
- Focus on customer service
Step #3. Analyzed key characteristics of successful employees
After defining their overall employment brand, Employee Continuum analyzed each job to get a realistic assessment of the tasks employees needed to perform. They also wanted to establish characteristics that made employees successful in the positions.
The focus group of existing employees was particularly important at this stage, as Employee Continuum asked them what attracted them to the job; what were the most important duties they performed; what they liked most about working in that position, etc.
Step #4. Recruited top employees to star in videos.
Next, the team agreed that having real employees tell their stories on camera would make the most effective recruitment videos. The Employee Continuum team stated, "What better way to tell people about the job and why want to be there than with employees themselves? They’re the heroes of the job and the type of people Life Time Fitness wants to attract.”
To find the best employee spokespeople, Harrell called the category managers for each target area and asked them to name their top five employees.
From these lists, employees from both the corporate headquarters and fitness centers around the country were invited to sit in on the brainstorming panels and tell Employee Continuum their own stories. This way, they could find the people who were most passionate about their jobs and had great stories to tell.
The goal was to have real employees describe their experiences in their own words -- not follow a written script. The only exception was a few scripted lines that appeared in each video, written by Employee Continuum but spoken by the employees, such as the tag line. “I always enjoyed being fit and healthy, but I had to go to Life Time Fitness to get my career in shape.”
Step #5. Created video recruiting profiles
Working with the targeted employees, Employee Continuum spent a day filming interviews that were assembled into 2 1/2-minute video segments. Employees’ comments were interspersed with footage of the fitness centers showing the facilities, members engaging in different activities and other shots to convey the working environment.
The goal was to have a video that had several 10-15 second snippets of conversation and images that described the unique responsibilities and benefits of each job, while indicating the type of employees they were looking for:
- For personal trainers, the video focused on the fact that fitness personnel were full-time employees, not independent contractors. It also highlighted the company’s scientific approach to fitness and described the technology and tools available to trainers to help members get in shape.
- For membership sales associates, the video highlighted the customer service focus and the ability to help members live more active, healthy lifestyles.
- For managers, the video focused on needing hands-on managers who were involved with every aspect of running the club and the opportunity to be part of a growing organization.
Step #6. Hosted videos on recruiting section of Web site.
The Life Time Fitness career site already was a key driver of the 70,000 applications the company received each year, so the team added the recruiting videos to their Careers section, where candidates could come to learn more about employee benefits and open positions.
A link to the recruitment videos was added to the Careers homepage.
That link opened a separate video page where candidates could watch the videos. To the left and below the video window, the team placed links to other key recruiting sections, such as fitness center job openings, corporate job openings, and upcoming career fairs.
Recruiters also took the videos to job fairs and on recruiting trips to give an overview of the company’s employment philosophy.
RESULTS
Videos have made a huge impact on Life Time Fitness’ recruiting efforts. “We've heard from the club leadership that these videos are a great representation of our employment brand,” Harrell says. “They've really helped recruiters have a more concise message when they go out to colleges and other job fairs”. Since implementing the videos, the company has seen an increase in applications across the board:
- Manager applications - 30% increase
- Personal trainer applications - 29% increase
- Sales associate applications - 7% increase
Even better, the quality of those applicants has also increased.
- The number of manager applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased 110%.
- The number of sales associate applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased 28%.
- The number of personal trainer applications that passed qualification pre-screening increased 27%.
Going forward, Harrell will be watching how the recruitment videos affect long-term goals, such as customer service metrics and employee turnover. “The cost of turnover in sales, personal training and management can be immense. If the videos can reduce turnover even by single-digit percentages, it’s paid for itself.”
