Stylist spoke to some of the UK’s top Reclaim Your Lunch Break supporters to find out how they are taking back their lunch hours and improving their time in and out of the office.

Earlier this year, Stylist set a goal of getting 100 companies to sign up to our Reclaim Your Lunch Break campaign by July.

Aiming to improve employee productivity and work/life balance, the campaign has had immense support from businesses across the UK who have proved exemplary in the way they are providing lunchtime activities and backing the initiative.

LinkedIn

Employee satisfaction is at the forefront of LinkedIn’s ethos and that is why the business-orientated social networking service promotes their very own Wellness Programme, hosting daily exercise classes on-site including boxing, cardio dance classes, hotpod yoga, bootcamp and HIT training.

As well as that, one Friday each month, LinkedIn gives employees an inDay, providing them time and space to reflect while stepping away from the office to pursue an area of interest or give back to the community. A monthly theme is dedicated to the day with recent ideas ranging from the idea of ‘Play’, ‘Learning’ and ‘Wellness’. Last month the theme of ‘Giving back’ saw LinkedIn’s London teams do random acts of kindness around the city armed with £50 to surprise and delight the community while teams in Ireland indulged in some puppy love while volunteering for Dog’s Trust.

On Reclaim Your Lunch Break Day, LinkedIn will be inviting 50 lucky Stylist readers to come down to their head office for a LinkedIn makeover. ‘The Liven Up Your LinkedIn’ event will have a photo booth stationed in reception where readers can get professional profile shots taken. With this in mind, LinkedIn hopes to increase readers’ opportunities in employment as, according to the website, profiles with profile pictures are 14 times more likely to be viewed than those without. On the day, there will also be LinkedIn experts on-hand to provide readers with professional knowledge on how to improve their profiles and increase their employment opportunities. 

Follow LinkedIn on Twitter and Instagram.

Channel 4

Channel 4 were reclaiming their lunch breaks even before Stylist’s campaign started and have the success to prove it.

Every Wednesday, Channel 4’s 30-piece award-winning choir, The 4Tunes, warm up their vocal chords at lunch time to belt out songs ranging from Mozart to Britney Spears along with a conductor and choir master. Meanwhile, the more reflective types can sit and enjoy inspirational talks with entrepreneurs such as the Gandy flip-flop Brothers.

Cinephiles can attend lunchtime preview screenings of dramas by Channel 4 and Film 4 in the company’s on-site cinema followed by Q&A sessions with the likes of Sharon Rooney from Mad Fat Diaries and Asif Kapadia from the new Amy documentary.

For the green-fingered employees, Channel 4 hosts a ‘Grow Your Own’ competition in its rooftop garden, inviting staff to tend to their own fruit and vegetable allotments. Following last summer’s courgette harvest and subsequent courgette cakes shared throughout the office, this year the team is focussing on growing sunflowers and herbs, with mint proving particularly popular this season.  

Employees can also indulge in Channel 4’s on-site fitness studio and therapy for a spot of circuit training, yoga and Pilates and there is even an eyebrow plucker (aptly named ‘Mother Plucker’) who tends to all their beauty needs. The broadcaster even provides an online walking guide to help employees map out various lunch time strolls around London.  

During Reclaim Your Lunch Break week, Channel 4 will run workshops for well-being, meditation classes, book and film clubs in order to promote a healthy work/life balance. 

Follow Channel 4 on Twitter and Instagram. 

Ticketmaster

At Ticketmaster, health and well being is at the heart of employee contribution to the company. Its well being programme, Live Well, aims to educate employees on making healthy lifestyle choices in order to improve their productivity in and out of work while focussing on four strategic pillars including physical health, emotional well being, nutrition and lifestyle and health awareness.

If you didn’t want to work at Ticketmaster before, you will now when you hear that its office spaces are designed with fun, exercise and relaxation in mind.

With on-site chair massages with the Organic Treatment Company, free fruit and herbal teas on offer, discount gym memberships, webinars on health and wellbeing and healthy snacks in all vending machines, it will be hard to be stressed in this hub of health and tranquillity.

The company also has a fitness studio where employees can attend exercise classes such as yoga, strength and abs sessions, boxercise, circuit training, Zumba and street dance with a yearly baseball competition in Regents Park where staff can unwind and battle it out on the court.

Connecting two floors, a slide inspired by the Belgian artist Carsten Höller, encourages staff to slide down whenever they’re in need of a well-earned break, whizzing them down to ‘The Imperial’ space which is used by employees to relax and socialise after work hours with occasional use of the bar.

For Reclaim Your Lunchbreak week, Ticketmaster will open up its doors to employees and local office staff to attend a gig in its ‘Imperial’ event space where there will be healthy food and drink on hand as they sit back and relax some tunes during their lunch break. 

Follow Ticketmaster on Twitter and Instagram. 

Congratulations to all of Reclaim Your Lunch Break’s supporters and continue the good work.

If you would like your company to be involved in Stylist’s Reclaim Your Lunch Break, all you have to do is email reclaimyourlunchbreak@stylist.co.uk with the title YES and your company name. 

You can also download a PDF pack that outlines how you can get on board with the campaign.

We can’t wait for you to join us.

Download the Reclaim your lunch break pack as a PDF here.

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