The social media giant offers employees free unlimited food spanning healthy and guilty-pleasure options. Many of the on-campus cafeterias at the Menlo Park headquarters are more like specialized restaurants, from barbecue joints and burger shacks to smoothie stands and ice cream shops. There's even an outpost of the uber-hip Philz Coffee on campus.
Employees at Facebook's new Mountain View offices won't have that problem. When the location opens this fall, free food won't be offered to employees there as part of a city restriction forbidding tech companies in the region from supplying fully subsidized meals to staff.
Why My Company Serves Free Breakfast to All Employees
The cafes subsidize everything except ingredient cost, and allow employees to pay using a payroll deduction plan. This means that although meals aren't, free employees are able to get a nice tax break.
The internet search giant larded its "Googleplex" headquarters in Mountain View with an assortment of free restaurants designed to serve every palate, dietary choice, and time of day (breakfast, lunch, and dinner).
The black glass skyscraper comes with a gourmet kitchen offering employees free food for lunch and breakfast from a menu that rotates daily. Items like salads, lemon tarts made in-house, sandwiches, and stir fry are included, as well as kombucha.
The Tuck Shop is the company's internal cafeteria whose chefs count experience at Michelin-starred restaurants under their belt, according to CNBC. Employees get free breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and apparently no meal is ever served twice. Everything is made from scratch using mostly locally sourced ingredients, and the company even makes its own ice cream.
The company's in-house dessert stand, the Frozen Palm, serves 18 flavors or smoothies and juices, which are made to order. They even have names inspired by Instagram filters, like Gingham and X-Pro II.
Beyond sweet treats, Instagram has a fully stocked bar on site called the Thirsty Flamingo where employees can help themselves to beer, wine, and cocktails. Plus, there's a kitchen stocked with free healthy snacks, cereal, and beverages.
A free, catered breakfast is served every morning from 8:30 to 9:05 AM at Pivotal's headquarters in San Francisco. While free food is just the cost of admission to the Silicon Valley tech scene, the company considers breakfast in particular to be a valuable investment. Because the company's work is structured around pairs of developers, breakfast is a way to align employees' schedules, as well as their blood sugar levels. It also helps employees break out of their pairs and meet other colleagues to serendipitously share ideas. Of course, not every company can afford to serve free, catered meals. But every company can think about little ways to nudge their workers into collaborating more effectively.
Some of the statutes and regulations enforced by the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) require that notices be provided to employees and/or posted in the workplace. DOL provides free electronic copies of the required posters and some of the posters are available in languages other than English.
When thinking about the benefits of free food at work, it can be helpful to think in terms of real-world costs. Providing a daily, $10 meal to a full-time employee costs the company $2,600 a year. If your company pays $40 an hour to a typical employee (factoring in the cost of benefits), and you lose a mere 15 minutes of their on-the-clock productivity before and after lunch every day, a free-food meal plan effectively pays for itself.
While not every company has the budget to afford a free daily meal to their employees, the benefits of free food at work are still within reach for almost every business. Most workers would see a once-per-week catered meal as a great perk, for example, giving a big boost to their overall job satisfaction. Providing free coffee and bagels in the morning is another excellent option, particularly for companies with plenty of time-crunched parents or commuters on their payroll.
In addition to the Homefront Round Up, Hy-Vee will honor Veterans Day on Friday, Nov. 11, by offering a free breakfast to all veterans and active-duty military members. A buffet-style breakfast will be offered from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. at Hy-Vee stores. Free donuts and coffee will be offered to all veterans and active-duty military members at all Dollar Fresh Market locations on Nov. 11.
While the majority, 56%, of full-time employees are "extremely" or "very" happy with their current job, that number jumps to 67% among those who have access to free food, the survey of more than 1,000 full-time office workers found. Though just 16% of employees said they get free snacks and treats at work.
Perhaps to no one's surprise, food at work is the most important to Millennials, vs. other age groups, and they are also the most likely to say they wish their employer offered more snack options. Snacks may even lure employees to new companies: 48% of respondents said that if they were looking for a new job, they would weigh company perks, including availability of snacks, in their decision.
"It helps employees be more excited about coming to work," says Monaghan, whose company, in addition to the seltzer machine, also gets weekly deliveries of organic fruit and has soda, chips, cookies and a popcorn machine on hand. "For lots of Millennials coming into the workplace today it is the norm, so you kind of have to meet those expectations."
"It shows a personal investment and that need to make sure that they're happy here and they have everything they need to do a good job," says Danielle Mahoney, director of human resources for software company Appeagle. Appeagle, based in Hackensack, N.J., provides free breakfast and lunch to its team of about 25 every day, plus has an internal communication system where employees can request specific snacks, which are always on hand in the office kitchen. The average age of its employees is 31.
"Everyone comes in and sits at the tables and eats lunch together," says Maura McCormick, an employee at email marketing company Campaign Monitor, in San Francisco. Campaign Monitor provides free breakfast and lunch every day, along with a full kitchen of snacks, such as hummus and vegetables, string cheese and fresh-pressed "green" juice. They also host a team happy hour every Friday with a fully stocked in-office bar.
Examples of optional fringe benefits include free breakfast and lunch, gym membership, employee stock options, transportation benefits, retirement planning services, childcare, education assistance, etc.
The various fringe benefits that are provided to employees vary from one company to another, since the employer can choose the benefits that will be provided to employees during a certain period. Employees are given the chance to select the fringe benefits that they are interested in during recruitment.
Whether they are interested in a company car, taking an employer-paid gym membership or education financial assistance, the employee is at liberty to take the options that provide maximum comfort at their current position in the company. With retail employers, employees may also be provided with employee discounts, gifts, and no-additional-cost services.
Although the goal of providing fringe benefits to employees is to ensure their comfort at the workplace, it also helps the company stand out for potential employees. In highly competitive markets, employers may find it challenging to retain top employees on salary alone. Fringe benefits serve as additional compensation.
Providing unique fringe benefits to employees helps the company stand out from its competitors. It provides a greater opportunity to attract high value and talented employees from schools or from competing companies.
Businesses that employ over 50 employees are required by law to provide family and medical leave to an employee who has worked for over one year in the company. The medical leave is unpaid, protected, and can last up to 12 weeks.
Companies that offer additional benefits above the salary often stand out from their competitors, and it makes the company attractive to different stakeholders. For example, customers are likely to buy from companies that are recognized in the public arena for treating their employees right and creating a safe place to work. The company will also attract talented workers who are looking to join organizations that value their employees.
Companies lose money when employees are unable to work due to work-related illnesses and injuries. This is because the employees will spend time seeking treatment when they would have been offering their skills and experience to the company. Creating a safe working environment and providing fringe benefits such as gym membership, health insurance, and dental care coverage can improve their health and reduce sick leaves.
Employees often work harder when they feel that the employer appreciates their contribution to the company. One way to increase employee satisfaction is by providing additional benefits like paid holidays, health care insurance, employer-provided car, stock options, etc. It will help reduce incidences of a disgruntled workforce and keep the employees engaged.
The Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA) is perhaps the most important federal civil rights legislation that affects employers when developing and implementing drug-free workplace policies. It prohibits all U.S. employers with more than 15 employees from discriminating against qualified job applicants and employees because of a physical disability.
The Civil Rights Act, 28 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), 42 (PDF 5.4 MB) is a landmark law that prohibits private employers with 15 or more employees from discriminating against individuals on the basis of race, sex, religion, or nationality. Employers implement a drug-free workplace policy need to keep in mind Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.
All personnel actions affecting employees or applicants for employment who are at least 40 years of age (except personnel actions with regard to aliens employed outside the limits of the United States) in military departments as defined in section 102 of Title 5 [5 U.S.C. 102], in executive agencies as defined in section 105 of Title 5 [5 U.S.C. 105] (including employees and applicants for employment who are paid from nonappropriated funds), in the United States Postal Service and the Postal Regulatory Commission, in those units in the government of the District of Columbia having positions in the competitive service, and in those units of the judicial branch of the Federal Government having positions in the competitive service, in the Smithsonian Institution, and in the Government Printing Office, the Government Accountability Office, and the Library of Congress shall be made free from any discrimination based on age. 2ff7e9595c
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