The sleek new headquarters of GoodLife Fitness include a coffee bar, employee fitness centre and meeting rooms named for Jimmy Buffett songs.

The company’s website boasts of its status as one of the country’s 50 best managed companies and 50 most engaged workplaces.

David Patchell-Evans — who built GoodLife from a single gym in 1979 to Canada’s biggest fitness chain — said in an interview last month that “Canadian values” are the secret to the company’s success.

“Our company is run with Canadian values — caring is the No. 1 criteria — that’s not the criteria of our (American) competitors. They run like (Donald) Trump.”

But with the paint barely dry on its new west London headquarters, GoodLife is cutting 60 jobs at its head office and 225 positions at clubs across Canada.

One staffer facing layoff said he’s offended chief executive Patchell-Evans didn’t break the news personally, noting some workers found out by e-mail.

Staff facing layoff include five pregnant women, people with young families who had just bought homes and older workers unlikely to find other work, said the employee, who asked not to be identified.

The atmosphere among staff is “anxious and uneasy,” the staffer said. “Not knowing what’s next . . . . But knowing once we’re no longer useful to the company, and we have served their purpose, we’re gone.”

The layoffs come about a month after the company moved into the new 60,000-square-foot headquarters on Proudfoot Lane.

About 300 staff moved into the building built to accommodate 500.

GoodLife Fitness has told employees it is installing a new management software system in its clubs next spring that will make some jobs redundant.

Jane Riddell, the company’s chief operating officer, said the company is working to transfer some affected employees to other jobs, including new “senior motivator” posts at the clubs.

“Our hope is that we can retain many of these great employees in this role, or in one of the hundreds of other available positions.”

Patchell-Evans said the chain plans to expand to 1,000 clubs while fending off competition from U.S. chains, such as Planet Fitness and Anytime Fitness, entering the Canadian market.

GoodLife also has to contend with a potential class-action suit.

The suit, filed by Toronto law firm Goldblatt Partners, seeks $60 million in compensation for current and former GoodLife employees, especially personal trainers, who have worked at Ontario clubs since October 2014.

The suit alleges GoodLife “required or permitted its employees to work many additional unpaid hours beyond those for which they were scheduled . . . to meet their sales targets and complete the duties required of them.”

Riddell said GoodLife is in the process of reviewing and assessing the allegations to prepare a defence.

“At GoodLife, one of our key priorities is providing a fair and supportive work environment for all of our employees. We disagree with the allegations outlined in this claim.”

The suit must be certified by a court before it can proceed, a process that likely will take at least six months.

Charles Sinclair, one of the lawyers handling the case, said Ontario law requires employers to record and pay employees for overtime work, even if it was done voluntarily. But in many non-union shops, “there is a culture in place where there’s an expectation they (employees) work extra time for which they don’t get paid.”

Goldblatt Partners has filed similar class-action suits against other large employers, including Scotiabank that settled out of court.

GoodLife Fitness is dealing with a union drive at clubs in the Toronto area. About 650 personal trainers at Toronto-area clubs voted in July to join Workers United Canada. More recently, some workers in GoodLife’s Ajax clubs followed suit, a union official said.

hdaniszewski@postmedia.com

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