Property Puregymers

As we continue to grow as a company, expanding and opening up new clubs, our Property Development team are busier than ever. We caught up with one of our amazing Architectural Technologist, Sophie Koren, who talks about her journey at PureGym so far and where she may be heading.

What do you do at PureGym and can you explain your role?

I work as an architectural technologist in the property development team, we are basically the ones that are doing all of the drawing work and feasibility studies as well as construction packs and tender packs for each of the gyms, new builds and refurbishments, which are then being developed across the whole of the UK at the moment. It's really busy at the moment in the lead up to Christmas, but it's really good!

What first attracted you to Pure Gym?

So a combination of things, I have always been a member of PureGym, for probably about 8 years now, and I saw the opportunity to do something I have a personal interest in, being the health and fitness industry. I also saw the opportunity, as an architectural technologist; I come from an interiors background, but worked on more of the construction and architectural side of things. It sounded really interesting and obviously there's a lot of growth.

There is a lot of opportunity within Puregym at the moment as the business grows nationally and internationally, so I thought it was a really good time to join the team as they expand a lot.

Speaking of your team, how do you find the people at PureGym?

It's great. I think everybody is really approachable, really supportive. There's a lot of encouragement to progress as well within the team. Even people that you know are a few levels above you, they're so easy to just chat to! Everybody's really, really friendly so you feel very equal to everyone, regardless of the fact that maybe they are your manager or something like that. Everybody that I've encountered, treat you as if they're the same as you, which is really, really, really nice.

Everybody seems to have a lot of respect for everyone, there's a real understanding of each individual's role within the team. I feel that my role is as important as somebody else's role. I think that's where the understanding comes from, is that we're all working together to achieve the same thing. Without one another, we wouldn't be able to deliver and achieve the things that we're doing. That's where the level of respect comes in.

I work in the Leeds office and we interact a little with marketing and finance and areas like that, and it's the same thing across the board with everybody, across those teams, everybody's really approachable, everybody's really friendly. It's a really nice environment to be in.

How does pure gym support you in your career?

There is a lot of support from every single department that I've worked in. I'm one of the Heart Champions for our British Heart Foundation, so I have quite a lot of exposure to different teams, which is really nice. And again, everybody is very friendly and supportive.

I want to get my chartership and my manager is trying to find ways in which we can achieve this. If I've got things missing within my portfolio, how we can work together to then tick off those boxes to get my chartership. So again, there's a lot of support in professional and personal development as well, which is a really nice environment to be in. You always, I think, in your career want to always be looking at where you can go to next, and that is what I want to be able to achieve next, and the support is there for me to do so which is really nice.

Completing your chartership to develop yourself and your career; what excites you about this role and where you could go?

At the moment with the chartership, I came from an interiors background, that's my qualification in terms of university degree, but like I said, I've always worked on the architectural, detailing and construction side of buildings, and so the chartership is almost like a conversion of my interiors qualification to a fully qualified architectural technologist.

Being able to get that chartership, I know pretty much my professional portfolio of work could definitely tick box a lot, but there may be some gaps missing, and the opportunity to be able to do that within PureGym. For example, if I'm missing site based information or something like that, my manager will then put me out on site so I can get that experience and have that part of evidence signed off within my chartership.

I'm not the only one in my team doing it as well, which is again really nice. Our managers want us to progress and, if you give people those opportunities, to be able to do things for professional development, it'll make them want to stay because you can see that the people you are working for are invested in you as much as you were invested in your professional growth. That's what I really like about it, if you show an interest in something, call it very good credit to my manager, he's very encouraging of us developing and really wants us to develop as professionals and is really encouraging of it. But it seems to be like that across most departments, from what I've seen and heard.

What excites you most about PureGym's future?

It's actually really interesting that you talk about that at the moment. I do quite a lot of the training in terms of having new starters and how we run the software, how we work on the software, how we set up projects and stuff like that. The infrastructure of all of the kind of background clogs of each individual project and how they work. I do a lot of training with the new starters that we're having in the UK, but we've also had the Swiss team come over to the UK and train with them. I'm already getting that exposure to the international market and we communicate quite a lot with that team. Then there’s the Saudi Arabia franchise; it's really interesting to see the different designs and different approaches to design and regulations that they have there.

I find PureGym's international sites really interesting, to see design wise what we can learn from them or what they could potentially learn from us going forward as we continue to grow. I'm going over to Copenhagen, mid-November with two of my friends, so I'm gonna have a little snoop around whilst I'm there!

What would you say to someone that was interested in joining PureGym as an employee?

I would say that it is a really supportive and friendly environment to be working for and it's really encouraging of our professional growth. So if you want to find somewhere that you're supported in your career and where you can go to next, then it's a really good environment to be in and everybody's really friendly and you'll also get a free gym membership!

Thank you to Sophie for her time in speaking with us. We wish her all the success in completing her chartership and in creating many more amazing gyms! If you're looking to start your career in architectural technology, property design or property in general, take a look at our careers page here!