At a glance
The Challenge
At the pandemic’s outset, Goodlife Fitness – Canada’s largest fitness organization with more than 200 clubs nation-wide – was facing a very specific challenge: How can members and associates use their clubs safely, while minimizing the risk of spreading or contracting a highly contagious respiratory illness? The worst-case scenario – a COVID-19 outbreak originating in one of their fitness centres – was a very real possibility, even with the best and most stringent safeguards in place. How could the executive team respond to a threat they’ve never experienced?
What We Did
The executive team at Goodlife developed a thoughtful and thorough plan – the Goodlife Standard – to allow safe and timely club access while addressing issues like capacity limits, physical distancing and equipment cleaning and turnover. Our first task was to “crash test” that plan – put it to the test, seek out vulnerabilities, blind spots, and opportunities for improvement while strengthening and reinforcing what worked well. To do this, we crafted a series of Immersive Design simulations to help bring the most pressing issues to the fore, including:
- Discreet Event Simulation (DES) tabletop exercises, designed to examine the interaction between the physical space, equipment and movement of people as a complex system. The DES technique allowed us to see how small changes – like the placement of a hand sanitizing station – could affect the system as a whole.
- Rapid Cycle Deliberate Practice (RCDP), a technique that allowed us to rapidly test, iterate and improve entry and egress. We worked on-site at a Goodlife club with a group of associates, using queuing theory to optimize a strategy of rapid club turnover and minimize dwell time and high-risk interactions.
- Full scale Go-Live simulations, where we took members and associates through an on-site walk through of the operational plan from start to finish, followed by focused debriefings.
- Virtual simulations to test the executive team’s readiness to respond to an outbreak. For this exercise we used video conferencing to simulate a “day after” event, with simulated media, public health and associate inputs.
The Impact
Goodlife was able to open virtually all of their locations nation-wide, with 92% of their members reporting that they felt safe while exercising on-site, and 90% of members reported that revisions to equipment layout and movement made it easy to adhere to physical distancing recommendations. Go-Live simulations generated a rich data set of observations and optimizations to ensure that the plan was robust, tested, and ready for implementation. Virtual simulations helped the executive team create a Code COVID response protocol that was rigorously vetted and tested prior to implementation.
Goodlife has continued to thrive in the post-pandemic era, setting the standard for health and safety in the fitness industry.
Read more about our partnership with Goodlife Fitness here.
