At the 10th anniversary celebration, we decided to make a change and moved our traditional summer teambuilding from Košice to Naples. Given that our team is growing every year and more and more colleagues are coming from different corners of the world, as well as the fact that Italy is currently our strategic goal, this step was both economically and strategically rational. When I founded GymBeam ten years ago, I never thought that we would celebrate the company’s tenth anniversary in such a spectacular way. With a budget of 500,000 euros, we created unforgettable experiences for our colleagues from different countries.
Organisation of teambuilding
Here are some interesting statistics from Naples👇
📆 3 days of a packed schedule;
🌍 350 people – 16 nationalities;
✈️ 22 airports from which colleagues arrived;
🛫 1 chartered private Boeing 737 transported 200 colleagues from Košice;
🏨 5 hotels where we were accommodated;
🍽️ 16 restaurants where we dined;
🎭 13 different attractions/types of programs;
🚌🚤 17 buses and 4 boats that we used for transportation;
🤳 20 influencers from various countries participated in the teambuilding;
🎥 7 vlogs on influencers’ YouTube channels and a lot of own content across all platforms;
📅 2 extra days spent by influencers creating content;
🈯 4 languages in which influencers made 50 videos for our YouTube channels;
🤝 9 in-house colleagues managed the entire teambuilding event.
Why it’s a great investment from my point of view?
Investing 500,000 euros in our company team building in Naples may sound like a big expense, but from my point of view it brings benefits for the whole company and colleagues. It is reasonable to evaluate the stated amount in context. Half a million euros is a large sum, but when we break it down into small amounts, in our current figures it is 10-day EBITDA, or 0.3% of sales for the year 2023. At team building, colleagues have the opportunity to get to know each other better, teamwork and engagement improves. Colleagues really give a lot to the company and often go the extra mile, which is one of our company values, so in my opinion, teambuilding of this scale is adequate.
A three-day program full of attractions
The entire program was filled with various activities.
Day 1
On the opening day of our team building in Naples, a varied program full of activities was prepared for the colleagues, from which they could choose according to their interests. The first activity was a pizza school and a tour of Naples, where colleagues learned how to make Neapolitan pizza, then the winners were announced as part of the competition. The second activity was a visit to Sorrento and the third was a visit to Pompeii. These locations are known for their rich history. The fourth option was a visit to the Vesuvius volcano. We ended the evening with dinner in the Michalin star restaurant with Czech and Slovak influencers. Colleagues had booked a number of great restaurants located variously around Naples.
Day 2
We spent the second day of our teambuilding on the island of Capri. The whole team met in the morning at the port, where we had booked 4 boats that would transport us to the island. We had a 2-hour break on the island, everyone had the opportunity to go and see what interested them. The island of Capri is really beautiful, I recommend you to visit it. In the afternoon, we returned from Capri and went to the annual All hands meeting combined with a beach party, where we evaluated the last 10 years of our company. The managers of individual departments talked about how the departments have developed and also presented a vision for the future. This meeting was followed by dinner and a party on the beach. We also enjoyed entertainment in the evening, as one of our colleagues, who has been with us for many years, prepared a stand-up comedy performance. This day was a great mix of rest and fun.
Trip to Capri
All Hands meeting on the beach
Day 3
The third day of team building looked very similar to the first. Colleagues had the opportunity to go to the program that they did not have time to complete on the first day. The options were the same, i.e. a visit to Sorrento, a visit to Mount Vesuvius, a visit to Pompeii and a pizza school with a tour of Naples. We flew back home in the afternoon.
We received a lot of positive reactions to the team building, regarding our employer brand. However, in my opinion, this is not something that should define our company as an employer. Our company focuses on talent that can fulfill our ambitious goals and can handle the challenges of a fast-growing company. Our real benefits include strong support for learning and personal growth, with promotion opportunities and access to top-notch education that reflects the latest trends and technology. We are proud of the fact that in our company, young people can progress quickly and participate in meaningful projects, which would take years to achieve in more stable companies. While the photos from our team building on an Italian beach may look idyllic, our daily reality is full of hard work and the challenges that this job brings. Teambuilding was a celebration of this work and an opportunity to create nice memories for the work done together over the past ten years.
You can watch the video from our team building on my YouTube channel.