9 ways office food fuels employee satisfaction and productivity
Food can play an important role in motivating employees to spend more time in the office, work more effectively while there and generally view their workplace more positively, finds a nationwide survey of nearly 1,100 full-time professionals across more than a dozen different industries. The survey by Seamless, the leading service for ordering delivery and takeout from restaurants in the U.S. and U.K., also reveals the importance of food as a means for building and fostering relationships with clients.
Since the average employee works more than 40 hours a week, “food remains a relatively untapped perk that companies can use to measurably improve employee retention and happiness and show their appreciation, while separating themselves from competitors. Free food all the time is unrealistic for most companies, but the occasional pizza party or afternoon treat goes a long way,” says Nick Worswick, vice president and general manager of corporate at Seamless.
Here are nine positive ways food can be used to inspire healthy eating in the workplace and foster higher productivity levels among employees.
1. Employee Satisfaction
While a majority (60%) of employees say they are satisfied with their current employment situation, 69% feel that more perks – including gym memberships (40%), stock options (22%) and food perks (20%) - would have a direct positive impact on their job satisfaction.
2. Recruiting Advantage
Nearly half of the respondents note that the availability of free lunch would strongly influence their decision to accept a job offer.
3. A Pat on the Back
Sixty percent report that having more food at the office would make them feel more valued and appreciated by their employer.
4. Team Building
More than 60% of respondents agree that company-provided lunches would encourage them to eat with their colleagues, fostering more internal collaboration.
5. Motivation and Productivity
One-third of the employees surveyed divulge that it takes food to make them show up to optional meetings – and another 20% admit to making their decision after knowing what’s on the menu.
6. Client Camaraderie
Forty-three percent of employees say sharing food or a meal with clients helps foster a better working relationship. Food also tops the list in terms of the best client gifts, with 41% noting that food is the very best option for corporate gifts.
7. Time to Spare
More than half of employees say they would spend less time away from work if food were available. Half of the respondents (51%) report spending more than 10 minutes per day picking up lunch or other food outside the office.
8. Healthy Choices
More than half of employees also say having food perks in the workplace would help them eat healthier.
9. Peace of Mind
Nearly half of respondents feel that more food perks in the workplace would make them more satisfied with their employer, in turn reducing 40% of respondents’ personal stress.
3 Simple Ways to Make People Happy at Work
By Margaret Heffernan
Source: inc.com
Learn these strategies to make your employees happy, and extravagantly execute them. You'll create a better business.
Most CEOs know that, if their workers are happy, they're also more productive. But how to make them happy is the challenge. Many take the goal too personally and try to build staff contentment through personal relationships. They get exhausted and find the strategy simply won't scale.
So what can you realistically pull off to make people happy at work?
Professional growth
People want to stretch, to develop their natural talents, feel their life has a narrative and is going somewhere. When they feel that they are growing, they may be exhausted but they're also inspired, energetic, and willing to take on a great deal. (That's one reason why investing in people can deliver a higher return that investing in new technology.) Anyone who reports to you (and anyone who reports to them) should have a professional development plan. That will keep everybody engaged, busy, and--eventually--happy.
Strong community
Everybody wants to be proud of where they work, to feel that they are investing the most precious thing they have--time--in something that matters. For some companies, the mission or the products are enough. If you make things that cure disease, create cleaner air, save carbon emissions, or improve life in any way, your business has an intrinsic sense of purpose which is probably what drew people to it in the first place. If you make ball bearings, knowledge-management software, light switches, or other kinds of widgets, you may find it tougher to demonstrate how you make the world a better place. Superficial social-responsibility projects won't fill this gap for you. You need to create direct links between the success of the business and the community you serve. These need to involve the entire work force and should be active, public, visible, and long lasting. Many companies get their staff to choose the causes or charities they support. The more they're engaged in these commitments, the more meaningful they will be to them--and your company community.
Fair treatment
"Everybody here is somebody." That's how one call-center rep once explained to me why he loved the company where he worked. The job wasn't thrilling, the pay wasn't great, but every single person was treated with love and respect. Just walking through the door, he said, made you glad to come to work. When people got sick, co-workers worried. When someone was due to retire, she most likely came back to work part time, just for the camaraderie. Sooner or later, everyone in a company like this talks about it as being like "family." The CEO knows everyone's name--even the names of everyone's kids and pets. This kind of fair--and kind--treatment also means startlingly low turnover rates, which also saves money. But it's not really about the money.
The very best companies I've studied and written about honor these principles and enact them lavishly. They don't pay lip service, and they don't do the bare minimum; they go overboard. Their CEOs do so because they know the secret of leadership: Look after the people, and the people look after the business.
Benefit Aspects of Employee Leaves of Absence
Employee leaves of absence raise a number of difficult questions under federal employment laws. Must a requested leave be granted? Under what conditions? Must the employee's position be held open so that the employee may return to it after the leave?
In addition to those questions, employers often must address the benefits-related aspects of any leave of absence. Complicating a benefits manager's task are a host of federal laws, including the Family and Medical Leave Act, COBRA and more.
Learn what you need to know to cope with leave-related challenges from your workforce. Please contact us for more information.
IS IT WORKING?
Having trouble figuring the return on investment (ROI) from your wellness program? A report by HRmorning suggests examining these five factors:
- Sick days
- Stress
- Presenteeism
- Health care utilization
- Employee satisfaction
A solid program will decrease the first four of the above items and bump up the last, the report noted. The report noted that a $3 to $4 return for every $1 spent on wellness is a common benchmark for wellness ROI.
Why is Engaging Employees on Wellness so Hard?
by: Helen Box-Farnen
Source: eba.benefitnews.com
Employee engagement is the goal of just about every wellness and health management program. You need to engage employees to be more active, eat better, get more sleep. … You get the idea.
So why is engaging employees so hard? Maybe it’s because we haven’t really thought about it from the perspective of the employee – the end-user of the wellness initiative. According to research from a partnership of Aon Hewitt and The Futures Company, most people fall into discrete attitudinal segments that influence how they think and feel about wellness.
The folks in the C-Suite and most in leadership fall into a category that embraces a sense of control and responsibility when it comes to their health. And, they see wellness as part of the solution to important business problems: lowering costs and increasing productivity.
The average worker, on the other hand, has a completely different mindset. Here are a few of the attitudes that define nearly half of the U.S. population:
- Time-starved
- Seeks entertainment
- Family-oriented
- Stressed
- Likes high-tech media and social networking
- Interested in group activities and competition
- Wants to look and feel good
- Wants recognition for their accomplishments
- Trusts friends and family as information sources
In addition, while you might appreciate a lot of detail, the people you need to engage are not information-junkies. Try this approach with your clients and see if it doesn’t engage more of their workforce:
- Make it entertaining and create some buzz: To get employees’ attention, it needs to be fun, hip, humorous, and exciting.
- Appeal to what’s important to me: Tell employees how it will help them look good, feel good, and be more confident.
- Make it easy: Today’s workers are stressed and starved for time, so it needs to be simple and uncomplicated.
- Make me feel part of a community: Family and friends are important, and people like to feel connected to others.
Whether you are advising a client about products and services that will help them engage employees in wellness behaviors or you’re a benefits executive needing to achieve business objectives through improved health, wellness, and benefits consumerism, being successful might mean stepping outside of your own attitudes. Instead of approaching wellness as a way to solve the company’s issues – sell it to employees as a way to solve their issues. In other words, if you make it about them, you might just get what you need.
Cultivating Leadership
By Julie Davidson
May 16, 2012
Source: Human Resource Executive Online
Even though federal-sector leadership scores are improving, more employee engagement is needed to prevent turnover. In particular, a recent report cites the inability of many managers to motivate worker commitment and creativity, encourage integrity, provide development or fairly manage people.
As the saying goes, "employees don't leave their jobs, they leave their bosses."
And a new study by the Partnership for Public Service in Washington shows the federal government still has a lot of work to do to cultivate leaders who make employees want to stay.
Even though leadership scores based on the Federal Employee Viewpoint Survey have been steadily increasing over the past few years, leadership is still one of the lowest ranked out of 10 workplace categories, the Partnership noted in its recently released study, The Federal Leadership Challenge .
"On the bad-news side ... our government's leaders, and in particular senior leaders, received low ratings from federal employees on a range of issues, including the ability to generate worker motivation and commitment, encourage integrity, manage people fairly and promote professional development, creativity and empowerment," the report states.
"But, on the good-news front ... while the leadership shortcomings pose challenges for our government, there is compelling evidence that dedicated efforts by senior management to engage employees, improve communications, and respond to their concerns can make a significant difference in the attitudes, job satisfaction and, ultimately, the performance of federal employees."
Overall, federal employee satisfaction with their supervisors increased from 59 out of 100 in 2003 to 64 in 2010, and satisfaction with senior leaders has increased from 43 to 49 during the same time period.
When compared to the private sector, the largest gap relates to employee satisfaction with the information they receive from management about what's going on in their organizations. Employees in the private sector also feel they are more involved in decisions affecting their work.
In order to turn things around, the report states, agencies can learn from experiences at the U.S. Mint, which was able to dramatically improve its leadership scores. That organization recorded a score of 69 out of 100 in 2011, up from 57 in 2010.
The improvement is the "result of a concerted effort by top management to increase communication with employees, to work more cooperatively with the unions and to more fully explain the challenges faced by the organization and the reasons why decisions were being made," according to the report.
"Executives from the Mint said they have been empowering employees and giving them greater flexibility to do their jobs," it stated. "They have held regular town hall meetings, and visited all of the Mint's facilities outside Washington, D.C. to hear and respond to employee concerns."