Jack works in our Marketing team, and if you followed his story late last year, you’ll know he undertook a charity walk from Yorkshire to Cornwall. Now Jack and TV’s Julia Bradbury are asking UK businesses to embrace the outdoors.
HECK’s Jack completed an epic charity walk during Lockdown to raise money for mental health charity, SameYou. He is taking his own learnings from long-distance walking and teaming up with Julia Bradbury to launch an “Outdoor Ambassador” campaign. The initiative is designed to encourage companies to embrace the outdoors, encourage their employees to get outside every day, and even in Lockdown find a lockdown virtual buddy – either locally, or virtually, to walk and talk.
Jack says of his charity walk, “I have never walked much in my life – I am more of a gym fan – but the 450 miles I did was brilliant and made me really take a different perspective on life. When I came back to work I made sure that I took a walking lunch break each day, and out of that it really made me think about how more companies could embrace something as simple as the outdoors to really increase mental health and well-being.”
Jack has now been officially appointed HECK’s Outdoor Ambassador and his role is to look at a number of different ways to encourage team members to get on board. We’ve also put together a dedicated section on the website giving inspiration to other companies.
Walking guru Julia Bradbury, who has been supporting Jack on his charity walk, has come on board with the campaign to encourage other companies to follow suit.
“People are tied to their desk more than ever in lockdown and employers need to actively encourage their team to get out and about – whether it’s a walk round the block with a colleague who might live close by – or a walk and talk on the phone. An Outdoor Ambassador could also support mental health which has had a terrible toll for many people in the last 12 months. While people are working from home, people can swap their company car for a good pair of walking boots and outside gear and in the future, we are going to encourage companies to ramp up their activity, such as team building walking adventures.”
Jack is also walking the walk, rather than just talking the talk and is already planning a series of company walking and outdoor challenges with his colleagues at HECK!
Closer to home, Jack and the team have been restoring a railway walk that goes round the farm, where the HECK! team walk every day when on site with their dogs, who come to work and stay in the dog hotel.
Watch this video, where Julia finds out more about Jack’s challenge, and the company’s approach to running HECK as a healthy and happy place to work.
Head over to The Outdoor Guide to sign up.