Making Company Mealtime Boost Your Bottom Line

Families who eat together, stay together. According to a Cornell research study, that saying also holds true for the workplace community.

If you’re looking for a cost-effective way to build morale and improve performance, your solution might be as simple as eating lunch together.

Employees' Mealtime is Quality Time

Perhaps not surprising to anyone who likes food, eating is a primal tradition which creates a social glue when shared with others.

Think about your last social gathering, neighborhood get-together, or holiday party; they were all centered around what you were going to eat. Even non-football fans live for the Super Bowl because of the food (and the commercials).

When all other things were controlled, the Cornell research team found that sharing meals at work provided value by:

• Facilitating greater collaborations among co-workers who might otherwise not talk with each other except when they break for eating;
• Increasing productivity by minimizing time spent traveling for an off-site meal; and
• Encouraging healthy eating (and lower health insurance costs) through influence over menus.

Many corporations spend money on team building activities and other cohesive bonding practices, but perhaps the focus can be turned inward on the much more basic practice of eating.  

For companies focused on encouraging healthy eating and lowering health insurance costs, exploring diverse meal plans is a valuable strategy. To promote well-being and offer variety, you can see meal options that cater to different dietary preferences including Keto, Gluten-Free, Veggie, and more.

4 Steps for Effective Meals at Work

With that perspective in mind, here are four steps to help even a small, budget-sensitive company capitalize on this concept:

1. Find a good location

When considering office space, be sure your company has a cafeteria or workroom where groups of employees are able to sit and enjoy a meal together. If your current office doesn’t have much space to sit and eat, find a convenient place outside the office where they could gather on a regular basis, whether it’s in the unfinished office space in the building next door or even the lawn outside.

2. Create an environment that encourages eating together regularly

You don’t have to provide an in-house cafeteria with free food, but you may want to cater a meal for your team on a regular basis. Emphasize the importance of this time of eating together, get your managers on board, and encourage employees to step outside of their office for at least 30 minutes to eat with coworkers.

3. Balance costs with quality

One of the biggest hurdles businesses face when providing meals is finding the right balance between controlling costs and offering healthy food with nutrients. For many organizations, this is not just a matter of budgeting, it’s about ensuring that the food and snacks they offer truly support the well-being and productivity of their staff.

If you can’t afford to serve a fancy 3-course meal, provide a simple pizza party with veggies or host a potluck lunch where you only provide the main course. Employees usually feel more invested if they sign up to bring something for the meal.

You could also hold “Wednesday sack lunch days” where employees bring their own lunch from home and the company simply provides dessert. Or you could have the company provide the lettuce and protein for a salad bar and have different people bring a topping or dressing.

4. Rotate schedules to accommodate employees

If not everyone can take 30 minutes off of work at the same time, have rotating schedules of different work groups who take a planned break to eat together. Be sure that everyone within that workgroup participates in the mealtime. 

Introverts may want to avoid the social gathering time altogether, but even those personalities will benefit from a little mealtime bonding rather than scrolling through their lunch break.

Success from Work Meals

Test out the mundane yet powerful activity of eating at work, and see large boosts to the bottom line when employees start spending intimate mealtime together. Just ask Google, whose groundbreaking electronic mail program, Gmail, was born from a lunchroom conversation. Then there's the famous "Pixar lunch of 1994" when A Bug's Life, Monster's, Inc., Wall-E, and Finding Nemo all came about during a lunchtime conversation.

From developing innovative ideas to fostering a sense of belonging and security, your commitment to quality and care is what sets industry leaders apart. While you are not expected to be a regular food services company, simply making mealtime a priority can be a powerful tool for building stronger, more connected teams.

For more information, please contact your certified HR expert. Not a current Stratus HR client? Request a free consultation and our team will contact you shortly.