SOPs and New Hire Briefings
What This Guide Covers
- How to turn the way your gym actually runs into clear, written standard operating procedures
- How to use Claude to draft a new hire or new coach briefing document that gets someone up to speed faster
- How to keep procedures consistent across every coach, not dependent on verbal tradition
Why This Matters
In a lot of small gyms and studios, procedures live entirely in the owner's head, passed down verbally to each new coach slightly differently.
Case Study
Northbound Training Co had onboarded four new coaches over two years, each one trained slightly differently.
Result: The next new coach ramped up faster, and the owner spent noticeably less time answering the same repeated questions.
Step-by-Step Guide
- 1
List the procedures worth writing down
- 2
Write each SOP with Claude
AI PromptHere are my rough notes on a procedure: [describe the process in your own words, including any details that matter, like specific class structure or safety checks] Write this as a clear standard operating procedure, numbered steps, in plain language a new coach with no prior experience at my business could follow.
- 3
Draft a new hire briefing document
AI PromptI have SOPs for the following procedures: [list them briefly] Write a new coach briefing document that introduces these procedures in a logical order for someone's first week.
- 4
Review with an experienced coach
- 5
Store these where they're actually findable
- 6
Update SOPs when a procedure genuinely changes
Frequently Asked Questions
How detailed should an SOP be?
Detailed enough that someone with no prior experience could follow it correctly.
Do I need SOPs if I don't have any staff yet?
It's still useful for training your first hire and noticing inconsistencies.
Should I write SOPs for everything, even small tasks?
Prioritize anything that affects member safety or experience.
What if my procedures are different from what's considered standard in the industry?
That's fine, as long as they work and meet relevant safety requirements.