More and more companies are seeing the benefits of offering their employees company meals. This used to be something that was considered a huge waste of money. After all, it’s giving something away for free. In fact, studies have shown that the opposite is true and that companies actually reap rewards by doing so. Here are some of the ways that your business will benefit by providing company meals.
Opportunity for Improved Health
Offering healthy snacks and meals to your employees can prove to be beneficial to their health. This may help to reduce your health insurance premiums. Some health insurance companies will give you a lower rate if you participate in a wellness program. Consider taking the junk food out of the office vending areas and encouraging more physical activity. Your employees will thank you and your overhead costs may decrease.
Potential for Increased Interactions
Food is one of the great ice breakers in life. Consider using a catering company to host your next company lunch. Rotate through a variety of types of food so that all of your employees will feel included and valued. If you have employees from certain cultures, you could incorporate their native cuisine into the menu. For example, you could have Mexican food catered from a restaurant, like El Molinito Restaurant & Catering. Overall, this is a great way to encourage workplace diversity through food. By doing so, you will help everyone to feel accepted.
This can also help to increase interactions for work teams that may struggle working together or teams that would otherwise never interact with each other. This a great way to get them to work on networking and inter-team relationships in a way that is comfortable, stress-free, and doesn’t feel forced.
Attractive Incentive for Employees
Benefits and other company perks may be a selling feature to attract new employees. This is especially true when it comes to job applicants who are fresh out of college. They’ve gone through their “starving college student” days—living off of packages of ramen cooked pretty much prison-style in their dorm rooms and free pizza from clubs trying to attract them to their events. Furthermore, it could also be the push that you need to retain some of your current personnel.
Gives Your Employees Energy
Don’t just include lunch as a part of your company meal package. After all, breakfast is often considered to be the most important meal of the day. Keeping your employees fueled up all day can provide them with the energy that they need to do their jobs well.
Increased Productivity
There’s a lot of lost work time that is wasted if your employees need to go out for a meal or snack. The transit time alone may exceed the standard break. Being able to go into the break room and grab a snack can make your employees more productive and more able to stay in the office and get more done. There’s also the increased opportunity for cross departmental interactions, which can improve the communication in your business. Learning how to work together can increase the ability of your team to be more productive.
There are a large number of benefits that you can receive by offering company meals to your employees. The relatively small cost of the food will likely be more than repaid with all of the benefits that you’ll receive.
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