Joanne grabbed a tray and plasticware and headed for the food stations. Suddenly unsure, she halted, thinking, "Burger and fries? No, never. Hot entrée — let's see, lasagna, or turkey with dressing. Yuck. Looks like the salad bar again. Boring. But at least I won't be committing suicide by arterial plaque."

An appealing and healthful lunch. Think about how different your day — and your workplace — would be if we had appealing and nutritious lunches even once a week.
The menu in Joanne's company cafeteria wasn't actively bad — but the atmosphere was Spartan, there wasn't much choice, the food wasn't particularly healthy, and the rotation was terribly repetitive. She could never imagine, for example, going home to Larry and talking about lunch. It was even less likely that she would ever be torn between two choices she really liked. Lunch had become humdrum. Maybe that's why so many people went out for food.
When a company decides that its food service must pay its own way, or at least not lose too much money, it's choosing to encourage people to go elsewhere for lunch. What happens next depends on the availability of alternatives. If restaurants are close by, people are likely to choose them over a barely-good-enough internal food service. And when they make that choice — or even if they wish they could — the company can be a loser. Here's how.
When we compel the
company food service
to pay its own way,
we're telling people
to go out to lunchLet's suppose that the company employs large numbers of skilled knowledge workers. They work with their brains — scientists, researchers, engineers, programmers, artists, attorneys, accountants, executives, health care professionals, designers, and many others. Generally, people in these categories are paid well, and they're hard to replace.
Company policies that increase productivity, improve retention, or enhance morale can therefore be good investments. If the in-house food service is truly outstanding, and subsidized (where legally possible), here's what happens:
- People eat in
- Duh — of course they eat in. And when they do, the time they save by not going out — usually a half hour, at least — can become work time.
- People consume less alcohol
- Some people who lunch out order alcoholic drinks, and some return with fuzzy brains. For knowledge workers, it's much better if they stay in.
- People network more
- Eating in-house, people can spend more time with a greater variety of people from all over the facility. This builds networks and relationships, and smoothes cross-functional collaborations.
- People are happier
- An outstanding menu and atmosphere make people feel valued, which helps them build their self-esteem. This strengthens loyalty to the company, improving retention. See "Retention," Point Lookout for February 7, 2007, for more.
How much is this worth? A good rule of thumb is one-half hour per day per employee. That covers the cost of lost time, increased turnover, impairment, low self-esteem, and so on. If the average fully loaded payroll is $25 per hour ($80 is more realistic for knowledge workers), subsidizing the food service at a level of even $10 per employee per day is still a win.
For a company with many knowledge workers, trading food for thought is a fair exchange. Top
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Related articles
More articles on Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness:
How We Avoid Making Decisions
- When an important item remains on our To-Do list for a long time, it's possible that we've found ways
to avoid facing it. Some of the ways we do this are so clever that we may be unaware of them. Here's
a collection of techniques we use to avoid engaging difficult problems.
Achieving Goals: Inspiring Passion and Action
- Achieving your goals requires both passion and action. Knowing when to emphasize passion and when to
emphasize action are the keys to managing yourself, or others, toward achievement.
Tactics for Asking for Volunteers: I
- CEOs, board chairs, department heads and team leads of all kinds sometimes seek people to handle specific,
time-limited tasks. Asking the group for volunteers works fine — usually. There are alternatives.
It's a Wonderful Day!
- Most knowledge workers are problem solvers. We work towards goals. We anticipate problems as best we
can, and when problems appear, we solve them. But our focus on anticipating problems can become a problem
in itself — at work and in Life.
Ethical Debate at Work: II
- Outcomes of debates at work sometimes favor one party, not only at the expense of the other or others,
but also at the expense of the organization. Here's Part II of a set of guidelines for steering debates
toward wise outcomes.
See also Personal, Team, and Organizational Effectiveness for more related articles.
Forthcoming issues of Point Lookout
Coming March 3: Risk Acceptance: One Path
- When a project team decides to accept a risk, and when their project eventually experiences that risk, a natural question arises: What were they thinking? Cognitive biases, other psychological phenomena, and organizational dysfunction all can play roles. Available here and by RSS on March 3.
And on March 10: On Repeatable Blunders
- When organizations make mistakes, they sometimes acknowledge them and learn how to avoid repeating them. And sometimes they conceal them or even deny they happened. When they conceal mistakes or deny they occurred, repetition is more likely. Available here and by RSS on March 10.
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- A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly
Webinar, sponsored by Technobility
Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
- A recording of a program presented June 24, 2020, Monthly
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Webinar Series. PMI members can earn 1.0 Category 'A' PDU by viewing this program. View this program now.
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