SoulCycle customers vent their anger on social media. Because a chic spinning studio is quietly firing top his instructor with little to no severance pay. One spinning guru claims she raised more than her $20,000 in donations.
Katie Rutkowski, who helped open her Skokie, Illinois studio in December 2016 and was promoted to senior instructor in November, said about 19 laid-off workers after learning of the layoffs last week. He said he has launched a fundraising campaign for
The 30-year-old trainer posted his Venmo account on his Instagram page. Noting that she made over her $20,000 in less than a week, she said she "exploded." She "didn't expect it to reach so many people."
The SoulCycle instructor is "understandably angry and sad," Rutkowski told The Post. rice field. "Some of them are my age, recently promoted, and now they're losing everything." Moved and helped launch the first studios in those regions — a Zoom call last week cut their work amid a downsizing that closed a quarter of stores. It was done.
On Thursday, SoulCycle told Lutkowski that he had initially , said to receive a week's severance pay. she won't get anything.
With little pay, Rutkowski said, "I felt like I didn't care how much time, effort, heart, and energy I put into this company." "They haven't seen, haven't seen, and will never see the enormous community I've built and the lives I've impacted."
"It's like a new employee," added Rutkowski.
SoulCycle, which is owned by The Related Companies' Equinox luxury gym, said last week it was closing 20 of its 82 studios and laying off 75 of its 1,350 employees. made it When the pandemic hit, the company closed its studios for months and reopened but never regained momentum.
Some instructors and customers say they believe the number of layoffs is high because each studio has about 10 employees, and the company is the most costly senior instructor. said to be targeted for reduction.
The latest (and therefore cheapest) instructors are We are looking for instructors that cost a lot," wrote one Reddit user. "They also seem to be closing a lot of suburban studios."
But in New York, another Reddit user said: I know because I took their class with a packed studio.
Nicholas Wagner was one of his Big Apple instructors.
"Thank you to all the amazing people who trusted me to take my class," the 12-year SoulCycle veteran posted on his Instagram.
In the latest cut, SoulCycle has fully withdrawn its stake in Tampa. One Reddit user laments that he, a veteran instructor there, Sasha Kahnamelli and Candy Jones "first relocated to Tampa for Soul." He added, "There is no 'neighborhood studio' where Sasha and Candy can go."
``What's wrong with the soul? "Oh my God - there are no more souls in the Soul Cycle," wrote another.
Instructor at the company for three years Jenny Casto moved from her Denver studio last year to reopen her Chicago studio after it was closed due to the pandemic.
``I felt betrayed. It didn't feel like the SoulCycle that I fell in love with. …” A Reddit user wrote about Casto last week. "She didn't deserve this."
Another The instructor, who has worked for the company for eight years, said he wished to remain anonymous, but was not offered any severance pay, only for the rest of his private life. People are devastated, instructors and riders alike," said the instructor.
Chain will continue to pay the laid-off employee's health benefits until September, a company spokesperson said in a statement, adding that the company offered some employees severance packages. He added that he does.
"SoulCycle's severance package is based on a variety of factors, and many affected employees are eligible for severance," the spokesperson said in a statement.
Lutkowski attributed SoulCycle's rapid expansion to its closure. I am accusing you of being. "We saw aexpansion that seemedpremature," she said. "They were trying to get it everywhere and we were spread too thin. They wanted quick money and quantity over quality."
In 2018, the company canceled its planned IPO, which raised $100 million and helped the company pay off its debt. According to IPO documents, there were 38 of her studios in seven cities at the time, with the goal of opening 250 studios.
This month SoulCycle is offering free classes to free classes andlet's ride together.
when news of the closure broke last week. , SoulCycle said "There have been many changes as a result of the pandemic as riders continue to return to classes at the studio," a spokesperson told the Post in a statement. "Since some of these shifts are based on geographic factors, we are naturally reassessing studio portfolios to assess whether there is an opportunity to right-size in a particular market. This allows us to continue to give riders the SoulCycle experience they know and love.”
Some customers attribute SoulCycle's woes to poor instructor quality. But another customer said she learned to exercise from the comfort of her own home and believes she no longer needs to spend a fortune on classes.
"If you don't like or have a connection with any instructor in your marketplace (DC), then you cannot justify paying $34 for a class. We lost all the good people we were producing," said one Reddit user last week.
Some of the closed studios are struggling to reach pre-pandemic levels, Rutkowski said.
"We were supposed to achieve impossible figures," she told the Post. "But we are back, albeit not as fast as the company would have liked."
