
![Coronvirus](/img/blog/posts/covid-workout.jpg)
At the time of writing, the United Kingdom has been through the national lockdown and everyone is hoping that lessons have been learnt and that going forward another nationwide lock-down will not be required. However, COVID-19 cases have been increasing again and warnings are abounding regarding a difficult winter ahead. It’s unclear what the future holds with regards this pandemic, so its best to focus on and manage the present - but how do you do that?

As of 18 July 2020, councils in England were granted powers to close down businesses to manage local outbreaks. It’s tough enough operating in the current environment, so it can be stressful for health club owners to contemplate being forced to shut down due to a local outbreak of the virus or non-compliance with guidelines.

The best defence is preparation and the implementation of a holistic solution that minimises virus transmission and provides clear data. No doubt there are gels, wipes and sprays dotted around your facility along with signs urging members to socially distance. But is this enough?

For the healthclub industry, guidelines for operating post lock-down stem from the [Government](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-announces-gyms-and-pools-to-reopen-safely) as well as [ukactive’s](https://www.ukactive.com/news/ukactive-unveils-recommended-framework-for-reopening-the-fitness-and-leisure-sector-safely/) framework on Covid Secure operations.

The UK Government’s guidance, issued on 9 July 2020, is extensive. In addition to requirements on increased hygiene and sanitation, as well as social distancing once within the facility, there is a need to “manage capacity and therefore prevent overcrowding” by controlling occupancy levels within each facility, and a broad requirement to “manage contact” by communicating with members about whether its a good time to attend or not as well as what they can expect when they visit the facility. Lastly, there is an expectation that operators should know who has attended their facilities and a requirement to assist the Test and Trace efforts by the NHS through the provision of such data should this be needed. There is a specific requirement to keep attendance data for at least 21 days.

The ukactive framework is aligned with the Government’s guidance and has been written as a “how-to” guide, providing specific and practical steps to support operators in meeting the Government requirements, at a minimum. A key requirement of that framework relates to facility-wide occupancy management via a maximum capacity threshold based on property size. At the time of writing, this requirement was 100sqft per person for gym floors.

These capacities and occupancy related requirements led to the development of Covid Manager, which provides the following specific features:

- **Capacity Management** - set a capacity for each of your sites based on property size and the applicable COVID-19 distancing guidelines to be enforced.
- **Dynamic Access Control** - Covid Manager automatically manages access for members based on the capacity set, as well as the usual business logic that is applied in your situation. This ensures that occupancy does not go over the set maximum capacity. Once space is available inside the facility (e.g. when a member has left), the system will allow another member to enter and thereby automatically optimises occupancy of your facility.
- **Occupancy Reporting** - real-time occupancy data provides you with visibility across your business. This is provided via an inbuilt dashboard that presents real-time occupancy data for each site. For customers with multiple sites, this information is conveniently laid out so you can easily track overall performance across your portfolio of sites and zone-in on particular sites of interest if needed. Notifications can be set to provide your staff with alerts when occupancy has reached certain thresholds. Also, you can easily notify your members of real-time occupancy (via your website or mobile app) allowing them to determine whether it is a good time to attend the gym or not. This is very helpful in managing footfall to your facility and avoiding any disappointment to members and reduces the need to manage queues.
- **Trace** - Detailed access records available via Covid Manager allows you to comply with and support the NHS Test & Trace programme, as and when required.

Our gym and leisure facility customers have always relied on Fortx as their highly available and resilient cloud-based access control solution to automate the management of what can be very high-volume, member entry and exit events. Combining these core capabilities, with the newly developed Covid Manager features, the application developed by Fortx provides a flexible and cost-effective solution to operators’ current challenges.

Covid Manager is available today to help with the current challenges and crucially has the flexibility to continue being an effective solution regardless of what the future with COVID-19 brings.


Health club management in the age of Covid


![Man planking](/img/blog/posts/plank.jpg)
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, the health club industry was adapting to digital and technological advancement. It was however doing this slowly. Arguably, the health club industry was behind other comparable industries like retail and hospitality in terms of technological innovation. This resistance to adapt appeared to stem from the threat of digital fitness potentially taking a dominant proportion of the market, relative to the traditional bricks and mortar operations. Given the COVID-19 experience, it appears digital has been the saviour of the fitness industry and it is now up to healthclub operators to find a way to embrace the inevitable.

Industry experts currently foresee the future as a hybrid one; the traditional in-gym fitness routines will return gradually in the months following the wide spread national lock-downs, whilst digital fitness via online resources will arguably continue to grow, enabled by ever more intelligent wearables and other devices. Some believe that consumers will expect gyms and studios to offer a hybrid experience given the relative success experienced by people working out from home during the lock-downs and as they look to augment the fitness services they may be consuming from elsewhere. At the time of writing, the latest entrants to the digital fitness space now include Apple, Facebook and Amazon. So this is getting serious.

Put simply, a hybrid fitness business is one that offers both onsite and online services. Onsite is what you offer within the four walls of your premises. Online is what you offer through live streaming, on-demand content or other online resources.

Pivoting a traditional gym or studio business towards a hybrid model will not be easy given that consumers can already combine different services from multiple specialist providers and tailor their own "hybrid combination" of routines. Regardless of what each operator chooses to provide its members, an area often overlooked is how to generate accurate and actionable data of member attendance at each gym or studio. Without this, operators do not have a complete picture of member engagement across the various services offered.

We believe that the operators that will succeed in the future are those that have an end-to-end view of their members; not just what Personal Training bundles or how many protein shakes they have bought, but an understanding of when they come into the facilities, when they do not, and when they do come in knowing how long they stay and being able to personalise their experience. Overlaying this data, combined with what members do when they are inside the club as well as their other engagement when outside of it, relative to their goals and nutrition plans, completes the picture for operators and allows them to tailor member experiences accordingly.

Digitising a business will mean different things to different operators - put simply, its a journey rather than an end in itself. Getting the foundations right is vital and we see too many businesses jumping to construct the roof when the foundations and walls have not been properly thought through. In a world of hybrid fitness, cloud-based access control remains an important foundation stone for any health club business that wishes to sustainably provide facilities and services that consumers can use and obtain full benefit from.

Read the key benefits of cloud-based access control in our [What is cloud-based access control](/blog/what-is-cloud-based-access-control) blog.


Hybrid fitness is here


![Turnstiles](/img/blog/posts/turnstiles.jpg)
The old way of doing access control involved upfront purchases of servers and licenses required an IT expert to manage the solution specifically for your business and perform software upgrades as and when required. The limitations of such solutions ranged from the inconvenience of lost or misplaced keys (which could easily result in a serious security risk), having to be onsite to open or lock doors, the multiplication of keys as you expand to new locations and the lack of any useable data or efficiencies generated by such systems. You will be glad to know that the world has moved on and this article sets out why cloud-based access control is now the preferred solution.

What is access control? In its simplest form, access control is a way of limiting entry to specific locations. This can be in the form of a physical barrier into a building, a particular floor within a building, or a section of the floor or a specific room.

When I was at school, access through the front gate was controlled by a physical boom barrier operated manually by a security guard. At my first job, we had a receptionist stationed in front of the main entrance, deciding who was let in. We all use a lock and key to access our homes. One of the first “technology-enabled” access control systems I had installed in an office required each member of staff to have on them a key fob that had to be presented to a reader that would then unlock the door. The software for this system was installed on a desktop PC situated on the other side of the wall. Data for all access events were stored locally on this PC. Many a time we needed the original installer to come out (for a fee) when something had gone wrong and the system was not working as it should, to log in to that PC and “fix” something or perform some upgrade or “maintenance“.

This latter system is a form widely known in commercial settings as a traditional physical access control solution, which works by assigning a credential (a card, fob, or biometric) to an individual, which then identifies that individual, and in turn, authorises them to enter a location if they have the correct permissions.

All of the above are forms of access control.

So what is meant by “cloud-based access control”? In this new world, software is hosted in the cloud (with infrastructure providers such as Amazon Web Services) which allows facility managers and administrators to control access to their facilities from anywhere and at any time. Data is also stored in the cloud, and therefore available at anytime, through any web browser and from any device. Access to the facility is still granted via a credential such as a card, fob, biometric or a mobile device).

![Benefits of access control](/img/blog/posts/cloud-benefits.png)

Access control can take up a lot of resources when handled in-house and usually requires a large, ongoing investment. Instead, cloud-based access control is offered on a subscription basis, where you pay a monthly fee for the services you use, thereby optimising costs and cash flow.

Cloud-based access control provides larger storage capacity while making information more accessible. In other words, the cloud lets you securely access information digitally, so you can use personal devices (smartphone, laptop, desktop, tablet, etc.) to manage your data from anywhere, and at any time.

This form of access control allows you to remotely manage building security and removes the need for onsite servers (or PCs). Information is stored and managed by a specialist third-party provider and you can save, download and access this data on demand.

### Benefits of cloud-based access control

- Allows for complete control from anywhere in the world.
- Cloud-based access control allows for unlimited scalability. Facilities and users can be added at any time.
- There are no servers to maintain and the software is updated automatically to protect against cyber threats.
- Real-time data is collected about traffic in and out of the building. This data is then available for analysis and reporting.
- When key cards are lost or stolen, cloud-based solutions make it possible to revoke access immediately. Also, employees can open doors with their mobile phone, eliminating the risk and cost of lost or stolen cards
- The ability to open and secure doors remotely eliminates the need to hire additional on-site staff for gatekeeping
- Video integration with cloud-based access control provides an additional layer of security and visibility into your facilities.
- API integrations available for software applications, such as HR, visitor and membership systems provides greater flexibility and efficiency for your business.

Fortx is a cloud-based access control platform that provides the benefits set out above.


What is cloud-based access control


We are pleased to announce the release of Covid Manager. Covid Manager adds value to gym and leisure facility operators by automating capacity, occupancy and access control for members and staff whilst also providing clear data and features to help with the NHS Test & Trace programme. Click on the preview below to download the brochure.

<a href="/downloads/brochures/Fortx%20-%20Covid%20Manager.pdf" title="Click to view the brochure" target="_blank"><img src="/img/blog/posts/covid-manager.png" alt="Brochure: Introducing Covid Manager" /></a>


Introducing Covid Manager


Since 2008, our customers have been relying on Fortx as a highly available and resilient cloud-based access control solution that automates the management of what can be very high volume entry and exit events. Fortx provides a number of other features and benefits. Click on the preview below to download the brochure.

<a href="/downloads/brochures/Fortx%20-%20Feature%20Rich%20Access%20Control.pdf" title="Click to view the brochure" target="_blank"><img src="/img/blog/posts/fortx-overview.png" alt="Brochure: Fortx Overview" /></a>


Blog

Health club management in the age of Covid

Hybrid fitness is here

What is cloud-based access control

Introducing Covid Manager

Overview of Fortx