Being a Team Lead Corporate Sales means ensuring that Urban Sports Club Italy’s corporate wellbeing offer is conveyed in a clear, transparent and incisive manner. Marzia leads a team dedicated to making Urban Sports Club the go-to provider for corporate wellbeing. We asked her a few questions.
Your job includes understanding the needs of Italian companies and helping HR managers build a thriving and attractive corporate culture. How do you do this?
Creating a strong company culture should be a top priority for every business because it positively affects employee engagement and job satisfaction rates, contributing to the very success of the company.
It means creating a balanced, inclusive working environment based on mutual appreciation, shared values, open communication and a culture of feedback, in which the employee is at the centre. And if the company culture is what connects the company to the employee, there must be a strong focus on the care and well-being of the employee, both on a physical and mental scale.
This is what Urban Sports Club aims to do: help businesses promote and support employee wellbeing. Our subscriptions, which give employees the freedom to choose which sports to practice, where and how, are the ideal solution to showcase not only the company’s attention to its employees, but above all to the individual as such, as it responds to the specific needs of each employee.
In an extremely varied, dynamic and hybrid environment, with Urban Sports Club, employees can go to the gym, train from home, play and practice other sports with colleagues or take part in bespoke sports activities such as team building days.
Employer branding has become a buzzword – but what does it mean and how does it relate to Urban Sports Club?
Employer branding is the internal and external image that every company builds to be attractive to candidates, acting on talent acquisition and strengthening the employee retention.
“It’s the way you present your company to job seekers and what employees say about your company as a place to work. “
Hubspot
Urban Sports Club fits perfectly with this proposition because it is an effective solution for companies aiming to improve employer branding.
If the company promotes the psycho-physical wellbeing of its employees by giving them access to a varied, innovative, flexible and highly beneficial sports offer, the employee will become a promoter of its company, recognising the attention it pays to its people and all the benefits derived from it.
Equally, the company will be able to become more attractive to new talent, as a reality in which employees and their needs are placed at the forefront.
Why do sport and physical activity fit into corporate life?
Strictly because it is the most practical and effective way to have a healthy and active lifestyle. If a company becomes a promoter and supporter of this simple principle, people will be more motivated to taking part in sport, improving their health, mental and physical wellbeing, reducing stress levels and increasing energy levels.
In a broader sense, because sport and work have more in common than you might think. I like to sum it up with a quote from CONI (the Italian National Olympic Committee): “Sport is a school of life, you learn rules.
You learn to be with others to share and contribute towards difficult, complex but achievable common goals. Sport is a vehicle for inclusion, participation and social aggregation as well as a tool for psycho-physical wellbeing and prevention.
What do you think is the biggest challenge facing the HR world in Italy?
It goes without saying that the pandemic has turned the tables in the corporate world as well, presenting HR managers with multiple challenges. But it is a reality that cannot and must not be ignored. The pandemic has only accelerated a process towards the need to create a new workplace that we would probably have seen emerge over the years, perhaps at a more gradual pace.
One of the most important challenges comes from the expectations of employees, who have now an increasing need for a better work-life balance.
The Great Resignation phenomenon we are witnessing clearly highlights how necessary it is for companies to implement initiatives that motivate employees and strengthen retention, as well as engagement and a sense of belonging to the company.
The strategies to be implemented concern different areas, but certainly the promotion of sport in the company is one of the solutions designed to achieve different benefits.
At an individual level, the employee recognises that the company cares about his or her well-being, and at a collective level, people can re-establish and strengthen relationships through group sports activities.
Often the most frequently asked question is about economics – does it really make sense for companies to implement a corporate wellness plan?
It is now a fact that if employees feel good and are happy, the company grows more and better. If a company is fully aware of the importance of the well-being of its employees, managers, and collaborators, the answer comes naturally.
The benefits generated by a corporate wellness plan are far greater than the investment and increase over time, as all those initiatives dedicated to people’s wellbeing become an integral part of the company culture and not one-off projects.
At Urban Sports Club we are very attentive to the needs of each company and try to find tailor-made solutions for each situation; whether large or small, they are all made up of people and the principles we have just outlined are universal. The stronger the company’s focus on employee welfare, the more effective our collaboration and employee satisfaction will be, and consequently the more effective the return on investment.
