Les Mills Asia Pacific recognised as a Great Place to Work

Les Mills Asia Pacific has been acclaimed by BRW Magazine and the Great Places to Work® Australia Institute as being among the top 50 places to work in Australia for 2013.

The Canberra-based fitness programs, which employs 44 staff, came in at number 28 on the list.

Welcoming the recognition, Les Mills Asia Pacific issued a statement that explained "so how did we do it?"

The statement continued "here at Les Mills, we believe that the right work environment leads to great work, which benefits the clubs and individuals we are fortunate enough to work with across Australia and South East Asia.

"Our staff are the key to our businesses success - we maintain a focus on retaining and attracting great people to our company and are invested in our people on both a business and personal level to help them develop and grow. No idea is a dumb idea. We have an open culture of discussion and idea generation and give everyone an opportunity to contribute to our companies direction.

"Our people and team are recognised, rewarded and celebrated on a regular basis. We've worked hard to build a culture based on honesty, competency, trust and to be forward-thinking, mistakes aren't frowned upon here. We all make them at some point, as long as we learn from them and move on, safe in the knowledge we won't make the same mistake twice, then we are better people for it.

"Meaningful and challenging work opportunities are provided to our staff; as a progressive company with a dynamic team we are searching for new and better ways on a continual basis.

"Staff all place high standards on themselves for what we want to achieve as a company and how we want to work; continual improvement at all levels has raised our quality of work and expectation amongst all team members.

"Of course, we've done all the important stuff like providing flexible working arrangements, training courses for staff, developed a great induction plan, encourage open communication, implement corporate workout experiences and events, teambuilding activities, employee of the quarter awards, and give handwritten birthday cards from all the team on birthdays. The best bit is having a great team of people to work with, who you respect, support and develop with."

The statement concluded "our mission is to Create a Fitter Planet, so it's fitting we're known as a 'tribe'. When the going gets tough, everyone bands together to get through the work."

Les Mills has had a major impact on the Australian fitness industry since the 1970s.

For 28 years, founder Bill Robertson, owned and ran Deakin Health Spa in Canberra (now Fitness First Deakin), and had noticed how aerobics rooms across Australia were becoming les popular. After a visit to a Les Mills gym in Auckland, Bill discovered a pre-choreographed exercise to music program using barbells and weights called PUMP (now called BODYPUMP®). Although at the time there was no intention to duplicate the program further than the Les Mills gyms, Bill saw the huge potential in the product and negotiated to bring the program to his gym in Canberra several years later BODYPUMP® was to become the world's most successful group fitness program.

It was after the huge success of BODYPUMP® in 1996 at Deakin Health Spa that Bill founded Les Mills Asia Pacific, an agency that was designed to bring the Les Mills group fitness programs to the Australian market, in that same year he co-founded Les Mills International, the organisation now responsible for bringing Les Mills programs to the world.

Today over one million people a week attend a Les Mills class around Australia and South East Asia - a testament to the power of Les Mills' programs and its desire to create life changing fitness experiences everywhere.

One of Les Mills' key goals is to be a major contributor in the fight against ill health and, in particular, obesity in the community. They help achieve this b

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