INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
INSIGHT & ANALYSIS
Of course, I’m not so naïve as to suggest a business doesn’t have to think about its finances, but moving away from the same-old penetration and retention rates to become health delivery partners isn’t a philanthropic gesture. Quite frankly, every operator’s balance sheet will be blown out of the water if we do this properly. Being community delivery partners is our industry’s secret sauce, and at the moment we’re totally undercooking it. Driving standards We have many extraordinarily impressive facilities – world-leading in many ways – but across the sector as a whole, we’re going backwards on the basics. Standards of cleanliness are increasingly poor, which undermines the whole notion of health. From a people perspective, CIMSPA has done a fantastic job of improving the qualifications in our sector, ensuring
our people are more highly skilled than ever. We haven’t made it easy for CIMSPA, though, and the private sector still hasn’t embraced it in the same way as the local authority market. Yet even as our people become better qualified, there are fewer and fewer of them in our clubs. I see that as a major issue. There’s no point training better people, then hardly having any of them in our facilities! Retention won’t improve if there’s nobody on-hand to help members. We also need people who are both qualified and who really care; I see fewer people genuinely caring these days. I also don’t see teams of rising stars that the industry needs to drive it forward; many of the best people in our industry now were already the best in the industry 20 years ago. Where’s the new talent? How are we attracting new stars to whom we can pass the baton?
Has the sector’s demographic profile changed enough over the years? Are we doing enough to engage new generations?
We need people who are both qualified and who really care; I see fewer people genuinely caring these days
Sharing data ukactive does a great job of promoting our sector to government. Inevitably the industry always expects more, but does it actually give anything back? How many operators go to their local communities and say ‘this is what we’re doing for mental health in the area, for knife crime, for social violence’ – for all the things that count in the real world? Is that because it can’t evidence its case? The industry has certainly become more united in its discussions and information-sharing over recent years, which it never was
before; this has been an ongoing problem. However, it still needs to do a lot more growing up. How can we prove we deliver anything we say we do if we don’t bring our data together? The platforms certainly exist to draw this data together, so we can make the cases to drive the message, and no-one has an excuse for not sharing this data. It’s an absolute priority, whether you’re public or private sector. Now, more than ever, is the time to collaborate and show the impact our great industry has on the health of the nation.
Now, more than ever, is the time to collaborate and show the impact our great industry has on the health of the nation
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STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
STATE OF THE UK FITNESS INDUSTRY REPORT 2024
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