If you’re the owner of a new yoga studio, you definitely know the amount of work running the studio entails. While you may be a qualified yoga instructor yourself, you’re not going to be able to teach all the classes yourself and manage the studio simultaneously.

This means that you will need to expand your team and hire yoga instructors to help run multiple batches throughout the day. While there seems to be between 250,000 and 600,000 certified yoga practitioners in the US alone, finding the right yoga instructors for your studio can be a challenge.

Here are some pro tips to help you hire the right yoga instructors for your studio.

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What to look for in a yoga instructor

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A good place to start when you need to hire yoga teachers for your studio is to know what to look for in a yoga teacher. We’ve curated a list of some of the important aspects you need to consider.

1. Qualifications

Being a yoga practitioner and being a yoga teacher are two very different things. A person does not need a certification to know how to perform poses and asanas, but might not be great at communicating with others or patient enough to be a good teacher.

Ideally, you’d want someone with a yoga teacher certification, which, even though there aren’t too many recognized certifications, is acceptable proof that the person has trained to teach yoga and not just practice it.

2. Experience

This factor is kind of a mixed bag. While most studios look at hiring yoga instructors with at least a year’s teaching experience, yoga practitioners with teaching certifications can hardly get that experience without landing their first job.

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Ideally, make a call on whether a resource is a good fit for your studio or not after personally meeting them and validating their skills for yourself.

3. Certifications

An industry standard when it comes to certifications is to look for instructors who have completed the 200 hour yoga certification course. This course is considered proof that the instructor has an in-depth understanding of human anatomy and the way yoga postures affect our bodies as well as our minds.

In addition, most yoga studios prefer hiring professionals who are registered with the Yoga Alliance as Registered Yoga Teachers. In fact, Yoga Alliance has trademarked the term “Registered Yoga Teacher”, so anyone claiming to be one has to have registered themselves.

4. Style of yoga

While Hatha yoga is the most commonly practiced yoga style, and encompasses all yoga postures, there are a lot of other popular styles that people are gravitated towards. For example, Vinyasa yoga, Bikram yoga (also called Hot yoga) and Iyengar yoga are three of the most popular yoga forms outside of Hatha yoga.

Ideally, you’d want to hire a yoga instructor who specializes in the style of yoga your customers want to learn the most, and not just someone with the 200 hour certification.

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Pro hiring tips while hiring a yoga instructor

1. Define your ideal candidate

Before you even start hiring, you need to be able to define who your ideal candidate will be. This means you will need to decide beforehand what age group the instructors need to be in, what qualifications you want the instructors to have, how much work experience they ought to come with, how many styles of yoga you’d need them to be proficient in and more.

2. Take time looking for the right candidates

Hiring in a hurry is never a good idea, because in your haste to fill up the open positions, you may find that you’re compromising on quality.

Instead, follow a well planned hiring process that gives you the time and the opportunity to interview multiple candidates thoroughly before making a decision.

3. Recruit before you have openings

Recruitment for yoga instructors should be an ongoing process, and not something you address only when a resource leaves.

What we mean is that even when you’re not actively hiring, treat every yoga professional you meet as a potential employee, and maintain a database of these instructors.

That way, when the time to hire does come, you don’t need to start looking for teachers from scratch and risk having to hire a substandard resource due to lack of time.

4. Hangout in the same places as your ideal candidates

The best place to find talent is to mingle with the candidates on their turf, and we’re not talking only about their favorite coffee shops.

Online spaces like yoga communities on Facebook and Instagram are a great place to interact with local yoga enthusiasts and practitioners. It also helps to follow yoga blogs written by yoga professionals, not just to find new talent, but to also stay abreast with the latest goings on in the local yoga community.

Similarly, yoga conferences and workshops are another great place for yoga studios to meet other professionals and scout out talent.

5. Remember, good employers attract talent

If you put in the effort to build a reputation as an employer who takes care of his team, you’ll find the best yoga teachers flocking to work with your studio.

There are multiple ways for you to build a work environment that helps employees thrive. For example, reward employees for their efforts, while encouraging and facilitating them to upskill themselves.

Free classes, discounted merchandise and direct deposit payroll options are other ways to motivate employees. Build a team that shares your vision for your yoga studio, and empower them by giving them growth opportunities based on their performance.

6. Partner with certification programs

Yoga, as with other fitness practices, needs constant upgradation in addition to regular practice and discipline. If you affiliate your yoga studio with a reputed certification program, you will automatically see yoga professionals queuing up to get certified, giving you access to some of the best talent in your city.

7. Ask pertinent questions

While hiring a yoga teacher for your studio, remember that the type of questions you ask them ought to be yoga centric and not generic. Here are some examples of pertinent  questions for you to ask during an interview.

• Ask how many years of experience the candidate has with practicing yoga. The reason why this is an important question is because mastery over yoga takes years of practice and patience, and anyone who has put in that kind of effort is likely to have what it takes to teach yoga.

• It’s also good to ask what types of yoga they have knowledge of and have been practicing. Even if they aren’t certified in other forms of yoga, having extensive knowledge of yoga types is a good sign.

• Always ask what they would take a person through in an hour long session. This will give you an idea of how much knowledge they have of the ideal flow of yoga session, and will give you insights into their teaching methods.

• Another important question that will help you gauge an applicant’s commitment levels to the job is asking them why they want to work with your yoga studio, and where they see themselves in the future.

The ideal candidate would have spent time and effort finding out as much as they can about your studio, and will have a career plan in their mind as to what they want to achieve and how they want to grow.

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Why Kenko is the perfect partner for your yoga studio

We at Kenko pride ourselves at offering services that go beyond being just a scheduling and POS software. Kenko can help you track employee attendance and productivity. Our tool will streamline your payroll management process for you. In fact, we’re among the most complete management solutions anyone in the fitness industry could choose from.

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Learn more about what makes Kenko among the most flexible, affordable, easy to use and feature packed yoga management softwares in the world by booking a free demo today.

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