As a business owner or office manager, a key part of your role is determining which investments return the most value for your company. Although company-provided lunch for employees might not be the first thing to cross your mind, it’s actually one of the most cost-effective ways to boost productivity and team morale. Think of providing chef-curated meals in your NJ/NY office as an investment in your company’s ongoing success.
Read on to learn about five of the biggest benefits NY/NJ companies (and their teams) can enjoy by providing company-provided workplace dining as an employee perk.
Boost Employee Morale
As we mentioned above, employee perks like company provided breakfast, lunch, and snacks in the office make team members feel valued. When people feel valued, they feel happier and are more motivated at work. While a business can save money by not providing free food in the workplace, data shows that among employee perks, this one has one of the biggest impacts on employees’ well-being.
Tip: As you explore group lunch ideas for work, take stock of your teams’ dietary restrictions and needs. Making workplace dining an employee perk is only effective if it’s inclusive, so be sure to work with a professionally experienced team to curate a menu that is sure to please your unique team.
Retain Employees
People leave their jobs for a variety of reasons. Those reasons include not feeling valued and wanting better work environments. While we can’t guarantee that offering company-provided food in the workplace will prevent employees from leaving, we have data that shows employee perks are positively correlated with employee retention.
Employee perks, like company-provided lunch for employees, have a huge impact on a company’s retention rate. Associated benefits include reduced hiring costs, a more positive company culture, and fostering employee loyalty.
According to USA Today, providing free food at work significantly increases your team’s satisfaction with their workplace, which has a huge impact on your retention rate—and your employees’ well-being.
Increase Employee Productivity
Offering breakfast or chef-curated lunch for employees in your NY/NJ office can increase their productivity in a few ways.
People are more focused and productive when they’re adequately nourished with healthy, well-balanced meals. Without food in the workplace, employees may opt to skip breakfast and/or lunch, setting themselves up to be hungry, tired, and easily distractible as the day wears on. Those who choose not to skip meals might leave the office to get food, potentially leaving a wide gap in their productive hours. Providing lunch for employees automates mealtimes, eliminating the stress and time for employees to manage lunchtime on their own and saves them money.
Improve Employee Engagement
Humans are a social species, and we love to connect over meals. Providing food at work is a way to recreate casual opportunities to connect with your team in the office, giving people the opportunity to let loose a bit and socialize.
Enjoying lunch together builds social bonds and collaboration between colleagues, which promotes increased engagement. Employees can talk through challenges they’re having and collaborate, sometimes with colleagues they don’t interact with frequently. It also creates a routine people look forward to, building structure into the day. For individuals who tend to skip meals, catered meals and corporate workplace dining also ensure that they eat during the workday.
Save Employees Money and Stress
Price-wise, buying breakfast or lunch out regularly adds up…and so does the stress of having to leave the office, sit in traffic or navigate busy city streets, and get back to their desk within a reasonable timeframe. Brown-bagging it can be a little easier for your team, but still, that’s money out of their pockets and time out of their schedules to plan, prepare, and pack meals.
Not only does catered food at work make employees’ lives easier, it makes your life easier too. When you work with a seasoned workplace caterer, you automate lunchtime every single day—no stress, next to no planning, just delicious food ready for you and your team.
Company-Provided Lunch for Employees = The Employee Perk That Fuels a Positive Workplace
At Corporate Essentials, we help businesses throughout the New York City metro area build positive, productive office cultures by providing nourishing, delicious meals with office catering for breakfast and lunch.
In addition to our office coffee and breakroom services, we also provide workplace dining services in the NY metro area. To bring this benefit to your employees, give us a call at 973-402-1088 or contact us here.
