More Employers Serve Up Food to Motivate Workers

April 22, 2013- Organizations find that breaking bread together can spice up the workday and feed corporate culture -- as well as hunger pains. It’s not just large or high-tech companies such as Zappos.com, Facebook and Google where free meals are served. Employees at companies like AFN Logistics, a third-party logistics provider near Chicago, tuck into a free lunch every Friday.

Kira Meinzer, vice president of HR at the 10-year-old AFN Logistics, says that offering free lunch is a morale-booster, a convenience, and a stress-reliever on busy days. It’s also a great recruiting and retention tool.

“We do know the free burrito isn’t keeping them here, but it’s a nice thank you and a nice perk for all of their hard work,” Meinzer said.

Free food also motivates employees to show up to optional meetings. In fact, about one-third of nearly 1,100 full-time professionals working for companies with 20 or more employees said it takes food to get them to show up to optional meetings, according to a nationwide poll by Seamless, an online service for ordering delivery and takeout from restaurants.

What’s more, nearly half said the availability of free lunch would strongly influence their decision to accept a job offer and 60 percent said it would make them feel more valued.

AFN’s Meinzer offers these tips to HR professionals who are considering providing free food to employees:

Be sensitive to special needs. During Lent, for example, when many Christians abstain from meat on Fridays, AFN provides a vegetarian choice.

Remember the night shift. Creative thinking is required when you have a 24-hour staff, as vendors do not cater late at night. There’s always pizza or one person can run out and get food and expense it.

RSVPs are important. To have an accurate count of the food orders, employees have to do their part by submitting their lunch form on time.

Work with the vendor. If possible, have the restaurant put the name of the employee on the outside of each order.

Order extra. There’s always someone who forgets to order.

Establish a food budget. For its lunches, AFN estimated that it spent an average of $7 or $8 per employee and then projected how many employees it expected to participate.

Assess what’s doable. For larger events, instead of spending hours shopping for food and preparing it onsite, consider hiring a catering company.

Toreadmore                                                                                                                                                

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