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To boost its bottom line, Sprint decided last week to end the era of free office snacks for its employees. The move represents a tiny fraction of the struggling telecom's effort to cut $2.5 billion from its total operating expenses. Axing the free food will shave $600,000 from the budget. But at what cost?
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From the most cynical point of view, however, this isn't just a case of corporate largesse. Snacks keep workers in the office working instead of out foraging for sustenance during working hours. A 2011 study by Staples found that half of all workers left the office to get snacks at least once a day, with some people making as many as five trips to get their munchie fix. Snack runs account for 2.4 billion hours in lost productivity in the U.S., according to the study. It should be noted, of course, that Staples and your boss have a shared interest in keeping more people in the office.
There has been no economic study on the elasticity of perks. Proposing Phoenix's Law: "When free coffee, soda, and snacks go, so should you."
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Snow on Friday November 13 2015, @05:08AM
A few years back, we had the entire head office all gathered together in some company update meeting (around 200 people, most of whom I worked with for years), and the CEO was up there powerpointing away, and then they came to the question period on how they can improve productivity or something like that. Being young and naive, I put up my hand.
He calls on me and I stand up and say, "What about giving away free breakfast to all employees?". A few people in the audience laughed quietly -- possibly nervously. I go on, "Nono, I'm serious. I'm not talking about anything fancy, just like a couple loaves of bread, some bagels, and jam or something. Everyone says breakfast is the most important meal of the day and helps you think, so for only a few dollars per employee, you can make sure everyone can eat breakfast." I left the obvious boost in employee morale out of it.
I was essentially brushed aside. I can't remember what he actually said, but something generic and neutral.
2-3 years later, they do an employee survey, so I suggest it again in the survey. I decided to write it like a business case. I calculated the cost at something like $.50/employee/day. I even suggested just taking the money from the annual cost of living increase, and no one would even notice. Yeah, didn't happen.
It just doesn't make sense to me. Compared to employee costs, it's practically nothing. It improves morale, and I guess might mitigate the problem described in the summary.
Then again, there's a reason I'm not CEO.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by krishnoid on Friday November 13 2015, @05:27AM
Everyone says breakfast is the most important meal of the day and helps you think, so for only a few dollars per employee, you can make sure everyone can eat breakfast."
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I was essentially brushed aside. I can't remember what he actually said, but something generic and neutral.
Maybe it's one of the few cases where they can reliably spend with their families before rushing off to work. I'll bet the CEO eats a good breakfast, and considers it a competitive edge against the rest of the employees :-)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @08:26AM
The last CEO I worked closely with surely had wonderful food. If nothing serious like a product release was coming up he would get into the office around 10am. By noon he would be out with the senior engineers and a couple department heads for their customary 1.5 hour long lunch, with drinks. If it was a nice day the same group would leave the office by three to go golfing. If it was not good weather, the CEO would leave just before or after the parking lot cleared out at five. In three years I never saw him put in a full 40 hours in a week. I practically lived at the place with several other people.
(Score: 2) by jdavidb on Friday November 13 2015, @01:33PM
ⓋⒶ☮✝🕊 Secession is the right of all sentient beings
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 13 2015, @02:17PM
It just doesn't make sense to me. Compared to employee costs, it's practically nothing. It improves morale, and I guess might mitigate the problem described in the summary.
Then again, there's a reason I'm not CEO.
Off the top of my head, there is a cynical and non-cynical explanation.
Non-cynical: It's more complicated than you think. I'm sure everybody here would agree that things are always harder than they appear they "should" be on the outside... Did you account for the time people will be spent buying the food and laying it out? Who will be cleaning up? What if there is a mess, and/or insects get attracted to the area? What if somebody gets food poisoning? What if somebody has Coeliac disease, are you now discriminating against them?
Cynical: The CEO disregarded your ideas because "it not how people do things."
As a side note, if you think it's such a great idea, why don't you just do it yourself? As you note, it doesn't appear to be that expensive.