Virgin Active Reviews

Member-facing staff: Severely underpaid vs the expectations placed on them. Staff churn is high as a result. Department management: Overworked due to lack of appropriate levels of staff. This has a knock-on impact on our ability to do our jobs effectively. We are constantly expected to pick up extra responsibilities beyond our job description with no consideration for the impact on our respective departments. For example, as Head of Exercise, I spent full days lifeguarding the pool and was then questioned by senior management on why targets weren’t met. This had implications on my and my team’s morale, while the company disingenuously bangs on about team culture. General management: Poor leadership. Doesn’t pick up the slack with the rest of the department managers, so morale is low in the club office. Overworked by Head Office, too. Head Office: Where do I start? A corporate boys club. Drill nothing but numbers and targets into middle management under the guise of up-tempo, exciting work, when in reality, it’s a monthly cycle of hitting targets with absolutely no recognition or missing targets and getting micromanaged to within an inch of your life. They are totally disconnected from the reality of club life and have no concern about anything other than making money to hit their own targets. Overall culture: Staff culture is terrible from the top down. For example, in 2022, Head Office gave themselves Club of The Year at their annual awards ceremony, despite having no members (because they are HEAD OFFICE). As you can imagine, all club-level staff felt pretty disregarded. Crap rolls down hill, so the terrible staff culture at HO is felt through the clubs. Even to the extent of having members of Head Office complaining to middle management about how they’re treated. Jobs and promotions higher up are handed out to mates without re-advertising (job titles are just changed) and loyalty is rewarded over any sort of merit. Also, absolutely no work-life balance. Unsociable hours (granted, part of the job) and work group chats going off at all hours of the day and night. Expectations to attend meetings and take calls outside your hours. Onboarding: There is next to no hands-on training. Just a flimsy online learning platform, where you read through, mostly operational, guidance and then you’re expected to be ready to go. It’s all learning on the job because nobody has the time to invest in supporting new staff, but when you don’t know something or you get something wrong, it’s treated as a blame game rather than a learning opportunity. Pay: Pay is ‘meh’, but definitely not reflective of inflation or the work load / amount of work expected of you beyond you remit. There’s no overtime for middle management and bonuses for Head of Exercise are technically possible, but basically a myth.

Virgin Active is obsessed with “Activeness” (although ask a handful of our employees to explain what this means…not many will know) but has lost much of its “human-ness” over the years. We’re asked to apply the Golden Rule (“treat others the way you want to be treated”) but this doesn’t seem to work both ways and we’re often asked to go WAY above and beyond the call of duty to achieve our company goals…and this happens again and again. “Change is the only constant” is a fitting expression we use, though we regularly go full circle on what we believe to be important / no longer important. At Head Office in particular, roles are regularly being created and then being made redundant not long afterwards which makes following the strategy challenging! Despite the perks mentioned above, many people simply can't afford to survive on the salaries paid at most levels and would tell you they'd rather get a bigger slice of the pie!