Trusted by over 60+ sport and physical activity organisations
Not sure where to start with inclusion across your sites?
Michelle Daltry, Principal Consultant for Inclusive Sport, brings deep experience in sport development, inclusion strategy and equality-focused work. She and the Inclusive Sport team understand participation, facilities, front-line teams, safeguarding pressures and the realities of change in sport and leisure.
Why the health club, gym and leisure centre sector should invest in inclusion
Inclusion affects member participation, retention, safety, trust and growth.
Many people still face barriers that stop them joining, staying or feeling welcome in gyms, health clubs, sport centres and leisure centres. For operators, those barriers can affect membership growth, programme uptake, customer experience, partnerships and community trust.
If people aren’t coming, it’s not always about awareness, it can be about whether they feel it’s for them. Inclusion helps you understand what is stopping them and what needs to change.
When inclusion is unclear, risk and inconsistency grow
In busy gyms, health clubs, sports and leisure centres, inclusion succeeds or fails in everyday interactions: at reception, on the gym floor, in changing spaces, during classes, around poolside areas and when something goes wrong.
Without clear expectations, confident staff and practical training, issues such as inaccessible spaces, harmful banter, poor complaint handling or inconsistent decisions between sites can quickly become culture, service or reputation risks. This impacts both your member experience and employee experience.
For HR Directors, creating an equitable employee experience for all employees, to help drive the business performance is crucial. Having an inclusive view of our people strategy, relevant to the health club sector, is important.
Otherwise you face many reactive steps – pressure to evidence training, prevention plans, and manager capability issues.
For Operations Directors, creating an equitable member experience, where every member is welcome and able to fulfil their health and fitness goals is crucial to drive your member retention and growth. When inclusion goes wrong, you will face member complaints and a retention risk.
Inclusion ensures your members and teams are all welcome in your sites, driving engagement, retention and growth.
Inclusion turns good intentions into better member experience
A health club, gym or leisure centre can meet basic compliant standards and still feel difficult, unsafe or unwelcoming for some people.
Inclusion helps operators look at the full member journey: from finding information online and arriving at the building, to using reception, changing areas, studios, equipment, classes, poolside spaces and complaint routes.
Better inclusion can support:
- Wider audience reach
- Stronger member retention
- Better customer experience
- Fewer complaints
- More confident front-line teams
- Stronger tenders and partnerships
Improved staff attraction and retention
Inclusion helps you reach people you may be missing, keep members you may be at risk of losing and protect the reputation your organisation relies on.
Practical support for your biggest inclusion challenges
Inclusion Partnerships
Give your teams year-round access to expert inclusion advice, practical resources and specialist support. Ideal for health clubs, gyms, sports and leisure centres that want to build safer cultures, improve member experience and make measurable progress across every site.
Inclusive Leadership Programme
Combining bespoke learning experiences, individual mentoring and reciprocal/ reverse mentoring this programme is designed to strengthen the way senior leaders shape culture, strategy and accountability.
Accessibility Audits
Identify the barriers that may stop disabled people from joining, using and returning to your facilities. Our audits review the full member journey and provide practical recommendations to make your sites more accessible, welcoming and easier to use.
Culture Reviews
Understand what is really happening across your organisation. A Culture Review gives you clear insight beyond pulse check data, evidence and practical recommendations to reduce risk, improve staff experience and build more inclusive gyms and leisure centres.
Banter and Bullying training
Equip staff and managers to recognise when banter becomes bullying, harassment or exclusion. Help teams challenge harmful behaviour earlier, protect member trust and build safer, more respectful cultures across your sites.
Neurodiversity training
Help your teams better support neurodivergent members, visitors and colleagues. Build confidence around communication, sensory needs, environments and everyday service, so your facilities feel clearer and more inclusive.
A simple way to turn inclusion into practical action
Step 1: Understand priorities
Identify the inclusion challenges that matter most across your sites, teams and member experience.
Step 2: Choose the right support
Find the best route, from Inclusion Partnerships and accessibility audits to training or a Culture Review.
Step 3: Build confidence and progress
Give teams practical guidance, improve consistency and show what is changing.
Get inclusion advice from people who understand how sport and leisure actually works
Sport and leisure environments have specific pressures: membership targets, changing spaces, front-line teams, volunteers, legacy buildings, local partnerships and public scrutiny and ensuring safety.
Inclusive Sport is not a generic inclusion offer dropped into a sport context. It is delivered by specialists who understand the culture, structures and realities of sport, physical activity and leisure.
Inclusive Sport has supported more than 60 sport and physical activity organisations, from national bodies to national health clubs chains and local leisure trusts.
That means you get practical advice that reflects how gyms, sports centres and leisure centres actually work.
Inclusive Employers brings the inclusion expertise. Inclusive Sport brings the sector understanding.
Trusted across sport, fitness, and leisure
Inclusive Employers and Inclusive Sport have supported organisations across sport, physical activity, fitness and leisure, from national health clubs and leisure operators to professional sports clubs and community-facing organisations.
Our work includes support with membership, physical accessibility, inclusive leadership, staff networks, LGBT+ inclusion, sport sector culture and practical inclusion capability.
Inclusive Employers have been an invaluable partner supporting us to develop our inclusion strategy. Inclusive Employers helped us shape the strategy, to provide friendly check and challenge. The flexibility of the support has meant we have been able to provide targeted learning and action, support for different audiences within our organisation and the wider volunteer governance structure, from Board to Exec to frontline delivery staff and inclusion changemakers. It is refreshing to work with an organisation that really gets to know and understand what our sport is all about and the challenges and barriers we need to overcome.
Head of People (HR)
England Netball
“Inclusive Employers has been instrumental in shaping our thinking, policies, and approach to inclusion. Their support has helped us foster a truly inclusive culture—not just as a tick-box exercise.”
Equity Equality Diversity and Inclusion Manager
UK Coaching
Ready to make your facilities truly inclusive and future-proof your growth?
Whether you need year-round support, an accessibility audit, practical staff training or a deeper review of your culture, Inclusive Sport can help you take the next step.
Book a conversation with the Inclusive Sport team to explore the right support for your health centres, gyms, sports centres or leisure centres.