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posted by martyb on Friday November 13 2015, @04:15AM   Printer-friendly
from the the-price-of-free dept.

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?
...
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."


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  • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 13 2015, @06:57PM

    by DeathMonkey (1380) on Friday November 13 2015, @06:57PM (#262789) Journal

    For the purposes of this discussion, let's assume you are paid for your time.
     
    I think that's a poor assumption to make. The article speaks of eliminating office snacks. It's probably safer to assume these folks are salary. "Work for results instead of hours" is what salary (supposedly) means.

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