The new leader of NextGen in U. S. Steel Košice has been Soňa Kötelešová (in the photo in the middle) since September 1. In addition to the "old" members – Lukáš Mrázek and Lukáš Kozel, Barbara Labašová and Anna Ondrovičová joined her team. We talk to Soňa Kötelešová about their plans, ambitions and visions for the future.
How would you characterize NextGen and its mission?
Who can join you?
Anyone who would like to get involved in our activities. Primarily, these should be people under 40 years of age. In cooperation with colleagues from Human Resources, we have created a database that we regularly update. We send information about all our events and activities to this group of almost 400 members. But of course, we do not discriminate against anyone on the basis of age, older employees can also join us. In recent years, we have had enough supporters even from the ranks of employees who have long since passed their forties.
The first of the events that NextGen covers and organizes starts literally in a few hours. It will be beach volleyball, which has already become an integral part of corporate, sports games...
Yes, we start this afternoon. We have 8 teams registered (every year it is one more team). We ordered beautiful weather, so I believe we will have a great time.
What other activities can those interested look forward to?
At the end of September, we will have an event just for girls. We called it the Hormonal Cycle – A Mirror of Women's Health. It will be a pleasant meeting for girls of all ages, where they will learn more about their body and how the hormonal cycle works and how it affects a woman's physical and mental health. Of course, if men are also interested in this match, we will certainly not throw them out, they will be welcome. Although they will certainly be more pleased with another planned activity - cheering on one of the HC Košice hockey matches. We also want to continue with lunches with vice presidents. We already had lunch with Marcel Novosad, Elena Petrášková and Silvia Gaálová. These were very inspiring and pleasant meetings, where we learned not only about their career path, but also about how they were able to combine work duties with family and family life. We still have some vice-presidents "left" , so I believe that they will find time to meet with us. And we also want to focus on newly hired employees. We plan to organize an event for them at the end of this year, which we called Coffee and chat, where we will guide them through our company, its hierarchy, organization... To bring them closer to "our" world.
In U. S. Steel Košice, the Women's Network (WIN) has been very successful and has been operating for many years. It is aimed at a different target group, but the penetration is definitely there. Are you planning to collaborate?
Certainly yes, we have already agreed on cooperation. We are currently working on creating a brand not only for NextGen but also for WIN. In cooperation with KERE we will have a set of clothes (T-shirts and sweatshirts). As a gift, we will give them away to our most active members, at various events and competitions, which we plan to organize through the X App.
Cover photo: NextGen team (from left): Lukáš Mrázko, Anna Ondrovičová, Soňa Kötelešová, Barbora Labašová and Lukáš Kozel.
