The alternatives also include people packing their own lunch, or having people pay for the lunches they buy on site (a small cafe for example). If the worksite is in a downtown area, there are excellent options within a few minutes walk, and people can pick exactly what food they want. If people are worried about the loss of a few minutes walking, or they are are far away from food, they can order food delivery.
Free work lunches are not a necessary perk, and people can easily pay for it if they think it’s worthwhile.
The exception I’d make is someplace like a K-12 school where they are already giving kids (free) lunch, and marginal costs are minimal to extend the benefit to adults. Or if the work is in the food industry.
Packing your own lunch takes time (similar to going out to lunch), and charging everyone for lunch each day would make the culture between employer/employee feel more transactional (which seems bad for morale).
I wonder how much a person’s view on charging for meals as morale-reducing is affected by exposure to perky vs non-perky cultures. For most US employees, the idea of your employer buying you lunch everyday is not even on their radar.
I don’t understand why a response like this would get so much bad Karma—its a reasonable response in good faith—I think we perhaps need to get better at separating disagree and bad karma voting.
The alternatives also include people packing their own lunch, or having people pay for the lunches they buy on site (a small cafe for example). If the worksite is in a downtown area, there are excellent options within a few minutes walk, and people can pick exactly what food they want. If people are worried about the loss of a few minutes walking, or they are are far away from food, they can order food delivery. Free work lunches are not a necessary perk, and people can easily pay for it if they think it’s worthwhile. The exception I’d make is someplace like a K-12 school where they are already giving kids (free) lunch, and marginal costs are minimal to extend the benefit to adults. Or if the work is in the food industry.
Packing your own lunch takes time (similar to going out to lunch), and charging everyone for lunch each day would make the culture between employer/employee feel more transactional (which seems bad for morale).
I wonder how much a person’s view on charging for meals as morale-reducing is affected by exposure to perky vs non-perky cultures. For most US employees, the idea of your employer buying you lunch everyday is not even on their radar.
I don’t understand why a response like this would get so much bad Karma—its a reasonable response in good faith—I think we perhaps need to get better at separating disagree and bad karma voting.