Creating a consistent workplace culture with multi-sites & hard-to-reach employees, with The Gym Group

By Suzy Bashford, Editor, Make A Difference Media
1 July 2026

Our latest MAD Leaders’ Podcast with The Gym Group’s Chief People Officer Ruth Jackson is full of practical strategies. She shares her hard-won learnings about how to create a consistent culture across the group’s 260 gyms, with employee health and wellbeing front of mind, and the challenges to overcome in doing this.

To make the challenge more complex, many of the group’s over 2000 employees are not desk based but, instead, constantly moving around in frontline roles such as Personal Trainers.

To listen to this episode, search for the MAD Leaders Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, or click on the Spotify link below:

One of the most surprising insights she talks about is the power of word of mouth in the digital age, and how this fits in the modern communications mix. Similarly, despite the expense, the annual face to face conference is also a key part of this mix.

She also talks about the importance of using the employee life cycle as a lens through which to look when considering these challenges. As a vanguard for Sir Charlie Mayfield’s Keep Britain Working pilot, Jackson is well placed to talk about how The Gym Group already uses this approach (see this article for more information).

Line managers as key ‘cascaders’

Keep Britain Working also emphasises how fundamental line managers are to employee health and wellbeing and Jackson echoes this – covering how, in a multi-site organisation, line managers are essential in cascading brand messages, values and purpose to their teams. A key example if the group’s successful Female First Health Programme.

The discussion also covers running employee networks with cross-workforce representation, measuring culture via surveys, improving retention, using listening groups and mentoring including reverse mentoring and the Accelerate PT program with DWP/Jobcentre Plus to help people gain qualifications and enter fitness careers.