To Attract And Keep Good People, We Need A Good Carrot.
I was really pleased to be able to host an excellent OSR panel in December 2022. The panel offered their thoughts on the powerful role of food in helping us attract and nurture employee experience. I’d like to take the opportunity to share with you some of their thought-provoking insights, which I found inspiring and encouraging.
We’re all very cognizant that we’re in a period of huge experimentation. Ways of working have changed at speed since the pandemic, which has given people pause – quite a long one actually – for thought.
So to successfully attract, retain and nurture our workforce, we need to redefine the workplace environment and the associated food offer. Obviously, we need food to sustain us as people, but it’s also a fantastic was of bringing people together, and in the work place, food and drink can be a huge enabler.
A complicated recipe
In this new post pandemic world of work, employees only visit the office perhaps 1-2 times a week and interestingly, 56% of UK workers prioritise health and well being over work. But these new and novel work patterns have had their own unforeseen psychological challenges, with 51% of hybrid workers now feeling lonelier.
Clearly as employers, we need to offer our hybrid employees something compelling and attractive to keep them engaged, motivated, loyal and productive.
The challenge is that there can be as many as 5 generations working in the same company, all with varying work ethics and considerations, and needing different workplace experiences to thrive. As noted by our panellist Linda Hausmanis, CEO of IWFM a company with 9000 employees now faces the task of managing 9000 individual workplaces in the age of hybrid work.
Balancing ingredients
But with so many generational boxes to tick, what does employee experience mean for different people?
Baby Boomers want to work for security & stability, whilst the Generation Z (Zoomers) believe they are in charge of their own destiny and look for flexibility in their work schedules. They also decide whether a company aligns with their own convictions and values. In fact, 68% of Zoomers are looking for a company culture built on mental health and wellbeing.
The youngest generation that have joined our businesses in the last two years are really struggling with making that social connection in the work place. A screen based meeting at home just isn’t the same for bonding or networking as the benefit they enjoy from the connectedness of meeting around the coffee machine each morning.
But whatever the generation and however our employees have chosen to work, they all need to feel valued by the company they work for.
So how are those workplaces conducive to the employee doing a good job and happily? Well, as our panellist Ali Khan pointed out,
It’s not one size fits all. TikTok, Facebook - these social companies know so much about us, and super-personalise content to us just from limited interaction. Why do our employers not know us and support us in a way we need and deserve? Younger people in the workforce are much more aware and have different expectations.
How does the work place affect people?
Mental health has become a huge concern. People of all generations have all sorts of things to deal with in their lives. For instance, younger workers face rising inflation, crippling student debt, unaffordable housing, layoffs, lingering pandemic, and a looming recession, so adding the make up of their work place to that list is just more stress.
With this in mind, the office now needs to become a destination for collaboration and team bonding in a more inviting and relaxed, socially connected environment, where employees feel valued as individuals but also, crucially, as team members.
So I was encouraged to hear that companies are now enticing people back into the workplace with food and drink. It’s becoming somewhere to meet our friends and colleagues to break bread, talk and enjoy company. Sharing their fears, misgivings or predicaments with their peers and colleagues helps people decompress or realise they’re not the only ones feeling that way.
Food breaks down barriers, and it’s a great leveller, so people have conversations and communications that may not have otherwise have happened.
It’s not only about cost and value for money as seen by the employee, but rather the Value of Experience. If a company appreciates how its employees live, work and play, then it can adapt and successfully demonstrate its convictions around diversity, sustainability, inclusion and even eco-sensitivity in the range of high quality food and drink offerings it provides.
Is the food experience worth the commute?
Food is immensely important, but to really nurture talent, we can’t just pile up cheap food. Whether it’s given or subsidised, people today care about the food they consume and whether it truly aligns with their own convictions and conscience. We need to work to deliver food experiences that are seasonal, sustainable, local and where possible minimise waste.
Thankfully, companies are realising that if they’re offering food as an enticement, they need to make it the best experience possible. Make it a celebration to share. And that’s not just the food on the plate, but coffee to. People recognise the social, sustainable and environmental effect and value of coffee producing companies. And they know good tasting (well made) coffee from bad.
Not only do our customers want to know where their food and coffee is coming from, but potentially how to recreate delicious and healthy meals at home, especially the young generations. Some companies going as far as teaching young people how to cook, so they can create their own food experiences. Going that step further in nurturing their talent.
But does food translate into productivity?
Okay, so we give employees good food to engage and nurture their experience, but does that improve productivity? Well, generally, a happy workforce works better. But how do you measure that? By retained staff? Better output? Improved company revenue? The quality of applicants for new positions?
As noted by our panellist Ali Khan, co-founder of the data-powered employee productivity & wellness platform SHAPE, it’s not only about ROI but the opposite COI (cost of inaction). Things are happening, which could be costly to ignore. Ali also pointed out that,
“We measure productivity. As human beings, we have certain common factors that affect our ability to perform to the best of our personal ability. Health, culture, engagement, satisfaction, managers. There are in fact 150 factors that help us measure if people are performing at peak. This is personal productivity. As employers, we have a responsibility to help employees reach their peak.”
Ali’s research indicates that only one third of an employee's output is determined by the individual, with the remaining two thirds being influenced by the working conditions, which can be improved by employers. Food experiences, as an example, can significantly contribute to productivity, presenting a unique opportunity for employers.
Very satisfying
One clear consensus of the panel was how much we all value great shared food and drink experiences. There’s a huge opportunity here for employers to innovate and create amazing experiences in the workplace through food; to attract, retain & nurture their people.
We can use food and drink intelligently and generously as huge drivers to entice people back to the workplace. And that enables us, along with our employees’ collaboration and enthusiasm, to enhance and better nurture our employees’ experience. Which ultimately will drive better profitability for those companies.
This article was originally published on Alexandra Kristall's Linkedin.
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