Saving Owner Sanity While Creating a Studio Instructors Love to Work For
How The Box Lagree gave its owner hours back each week while building a more professional staff experience
1–3
Hours saved per week on subbing, scheduling, and staff communication
10/10
Rating on communication clarity up from 5/10 before NetGym
★★★★★
A staff experience instructors notice and rave about.
Studio Overview
- Business Type: Independent Studio
- Modalities: Lagree, Mat-Based Lagree, Mat Pilates, Yoga & Stretch
- Locations: Seattle, Washington
- Instructors/Staff: 20
- Years in Business: Less than 1 Year
- Scheduling System: Mariana Tek
For owner Maureen Bhak, running The Box also means teaching in it. Like many independent studio owners, she isn’t managing the business from behind a desk—she’s balancing the member-facing work she loves with all the staff logistics happening behind the scenes.
That’s what made getting the right systems in place so important. Every hour spent coordinating subs, answering group texts, or making sure instructors saw an update was an hour Maureen couldn’t spend doing what lights her up; teaching, leading her team, and focusing on the studio itself.
But creating a better system wasn’t only about making her job easier. The tools a studio uses behind the scenes shape what it’s like for instructors to work there, too. By giving her team one place for schedules, coverage, and communication, Maureen discovered that professional staff operations could do both: give the owner breathing room and give instructors a better place to teach.
The Challenge Before NetGym
Within a month of running The Box, Maureen already knew group texts and email threads weren’t the system she wanted to build the studio around. Staff coordination was taking 1–3 hours each week, communication wasn’t as clear as it needed to be, and Maureen was still too involved in making the pieces fit together.
Teaching While Running the Business:
Maureen wasn't just managing the studio—she was also teaching. Staff scheduling and communication competed for the same limited time she needed to serve members, lead her team, and run the business.
Scattered Staff Communication:
Important information lived across group texts and email threads, making it easier for instructors to miss updates or feel out of the loop. Maureen rated team communication clarity just 5/10 before NetGym.
Coverage Without Confidence:
Last-minute coverage gaps created another reason to stay plugged into her phone. Before NetGym, Maureen rated her confidence in class coverage reliability at just 5/10.
Hours Lost to Staff Admin:
Subbing, scheduling, and communication consumed 1–3 hours each week. For an owner who is also on the schedule teaching classes, those hours mattered.
As the owner and an instructor at the studio, I knew I couldn’t spend as much time as I was on scheduling and communications.
Maureen Bhak
Owner, The Box Lagree Studio
Why Maureen Chose NetGym
Maureen wanted to spend less time managing staff logistics without making life harder for her team. NetGym stood out for its ease of use for admins, mobile experience for instructors, automation, professionalism, and integration with Mariana Tek.
Adoption reflected that simplicity: Maureen rated onboarding 10/10, and her team was comfortable using NetGym within just 1–2 weeks!
Here were Maureen’s main draws to NetGym:
01 Automated Sub Management
Instead of coordinating coverage through group texts, instructors can post and accept eligible sub opportunities in NetGym. With The Box using auto-approval, coverage can be secured without requiring Maureen to personally manage every handoff.
02 One Place for Staff Communication
NetGym's Communication Hub replaced scattered texts and email threads with a dedicated place for team announcements, channels, and direct communication. Staff know where to look, while Maureen doesn't have to wonder whether an important update disappeared in a text chain.
03 Mariana Tek Integration
With the Mariana Tek integration, class schedules and subbing stay connected. Instructors can see their permanent classes and the classes they're covering from one mobile schedule, reducing duplicate work and confusion.
04 More Ownership for Instructors
Instead of Maureen acting as the middleman for every coverage need or general studio question, instructors have tools to manage their own sub requests, schedules, and information intake. The result is clearer processes for the team and less day-to-day intervention from the owner.
04 A More Professional Way to Work
For instructors who teach at multiple studios, the contrast between an organized staff platform and group-text chaos can be especially noticeable. NetGym gave The Box the kind of polished staff experience that increases talent acquisition and protects retention—a core benefit of professionalizing staff operations at any size of business.
We didn’t even know we were living in studio poverty until we came here and found out about NetGym. It is so amazing!
Instructors at The Box Lagree Studio
Results That Matter
1–3 Hours Back Every Week
The same amount of time Maureen previously spent managing subbing, scheduling, and staff communication is now saved.
Communication Clarity:
5/10 → 10/10
With team communication centralized, Maureen's rating of staff communication clarity doubled.
Coverage Confidence:
5/10 → 10/10
A clearer, automated subbing process dramatically increased Maureen's confidence that classes would stay reliably covered.
Instructor Accountability:
7/10 → 9/10
Giving instructors clear schedules, communication, and coverage processes made expectations easier to follow and increased accountability across the team.
5 Star Staff Experience
For team members accustomed to managing studio work through group texts at other studios, NetGym made The Box feel noticeably more organized and professional.
The Bigger Impact: Better for Everyone
The biggest change at The Box isn’t simply that a group text became an app. It’s that Maureen no longer has to be the connective tissue holding every piece of staff operations together.
She gets hours back each week and greater confidence that communication is reaching her team and classes are getting covered. Her instructors get one dedicated place to manage the logistics of working at the studio. And members benefit from greater consistency.
For a studio owner who also teaches, that’s a meaningful shift. The systems running behind the scenes no longer compete as heavily with the work Maureen actually wants and needs to be doing.
And for her instructors, those same systems make The Box a more professional, easier place to work.
That’s the win on both sides: a studio that’s easier for Maureen to run and better for her instructors to teach in.
