Live Fit Gym Gives Frontline Managers a Roadmap for Performance With PerformYard

Live Fit Gym runs payroll through a large payroll platform, and when the company tried that platform's review system, it was far too complicated for front desk workers who spend their shifts on the club floor rather than at a computer. 

Performance reviews and disciplinary warnings mostly happened on paper, and the managers delivering them had come up through fitness and wellness roles rather than formal management training.

"The people that come to work for Live Fit Gym are experts in integrated fitness, wellness, massage," Darres said. "They haven’t gone to school to learn how to manage or anything like that, and they tend to improve their management skills on the job."

The problem is, Live Fit Gym didn’t have software that could help. In fact, the software was making things worse:

• Frontline staff off the computer: Front desk employees aren't on company systems, so reviews and PIPs have to be delivered on paper, in person.
• An HR bottleneck: With managers still learning how to manage, Darres was creating every PIP herself on top of her finance, risk, and project work.
• Software fatigue: In the middle of consolidating two payment processing platforms into one, teams were already pushing back on having too many tools.

Why PerformYard

Darres needed a system that would work for a workforce most HR software isn't designed around: people who never sit at a desk. After the payroll platform's review system proved too complicated for that group, she started looking at other options.

"For our people, they just aren’t in a traditional office work environment, and most of these software platforms cater to those office work environments," she said.

Her first goal was modest. "I originally actually just wanted PerformYard to hold my documents," Darres said. It quickly became the place where Live Fit Gym runs its background check paperwork, its PIPs, and its 90-day reviews.

Key factors in the decision included:

• Easy for non-office managers: Managers who don't live in software could pick it up on their own.
• PIPs and reviews together: Improvement plans, 90-day reviews, and one-year reviews all live in one system.
• Works for paper-based teams: Reviews and PIPs can be printed and delivered in person on the club floor.
• A home for HR documents: Darres sends background check authorizations and disclosures through PerformYard and keeps the signed documents there.
• AI writing assistance: The built-in rephrasing helps Darres and her managers word feedback and other sensitive HR communication.
• Hands-on support: Liz, Live Fit Gym's PerformYard customer success manager, walked Darres through background checks and helped set up 90-day reviews.

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Starting With HR's Own Work

Darres began by using PerformYard herself. With roughly 95 employees to run background checks on, she used the platform to send each authorization and disclosure, collect them back, and store the completed documents in one place.

"Liz showed me how to do it," she said. "I'm like, this is perfect."

She also started creating the company's PIPs in PerformYard and leaning on its AI rephrasing for HR writing beyond reviews, such as emails to employees about workplace accommodations.

Opening It Up to Managers

Because teams were already juggling a major payment systems migration, Darres didn't make PerformYard mandatory. Instead, she offered it to the managers she thought would get the most out of it, gave them broad access to manage their own teams, and worked with Liz to set up 90-day reviews, a practice the company introduced within the past two years alongside one-year reviews. 

One manager took it further than anyone expected. "I opened this up for the managers that I thought needed this and needed to use this, and one of them, he has 19 direct reports, loves your whole platform, and he does all his performance reviews there, and I had no idea he was doing that," Darres said. "And I just found out yesterday, and I'm like, 'Wow, I am impressed you're doing this and using it.'"

Live Fit Gym's managers went from avoiding formal discipline to running PIPs and 90-day reviews themselves, and the manager who adopted PerformYard first has seen the biggest change on his team.

Managers Learning to Manage

This managers’s front desk team deals with standard day-to-day performance issues, and it's where PerformYard has had the most visible effect. "His team has actually had the most performance improvement," Darres said. 

Asked how his team had improved as a result, she didn't hesitate: "He and his team are deepening their management experience because of this."

The shift has spread beyond one manager. "They were all afraid to do the PIPs," Darres said. "But I think now they're really robustly engaged in the process. They know the right way to do it, and they've embraced it."

Clearer Lines in a Gray Area

Darres coaches her managers that discipline rarely comes with a simple rule. "They’re learning all of the nuances, and I always share with them, HR is not black and white, it's gray," she said.

A consistent PIP process gives them a way to work through those decisions. "Once the managers have embraced the PIPs, their lives are getting easier and easier because they're trying to turn the gray world into something a little bit more black and white," Darres said.

Outcomes for the Business

For Darres, the payoff is employees who stay on track and managers who catch problems early, which matters in a business built on sales and member service. "The outcome is we have an employee who's fully engaged and working as they should be," she said. "And it helps the manager to stay on task themselves. They understand 90-day reviews matter. This is when you catch all of the little issues. This is when you can reward good performance."

Increased Adoption on the Horizon

Darres expects more managers to follow that manager’s lead, including a regional director who oversees about 40 people, and plans to bring in a dedicated HR manager who will work in PerformYard as well. "I feel that by the time we renew, all my managers are gonna be jumping into this," Darres said.

"Managers are gonna use it to better manage employees, whereas before maybe they didn't understand what to do with them. That's what I feel like. I feel like I've given managers a roadmap."