Free workplace breakfasts: an office perk worth providing

Free workplace breakfasts; it’s not just companies being lovely to their employees. It’s a creative business decision that, if executed well, will set employees on the right foot during their days in the office. Breakfasts are right on trend with office workers now. With more time spent at home from hybrid working, employees have been using their mornings to make more ambitious breakfasts. 

Companies are one-upping a major WFH perk by offering their employees complimentary breakfasts without the cost or the washing up. Never has there been a better time to make an impact with free workplace breakfasts for your employees. Let us explain.

But why make workplace breakfasts free? 

There’s a buffet of reasons (pun intended) why a company might provide breakfast as a free office perk. For example, one of our clients treats their employees to a Fooditude breakfast every day and serves lunch for one day a week. But why? Each company will give you a different answer. However, we’ve summarised our observations from serving free workplace breakfasts down to three main benefits: company culture, productivity and cost-effectiveness.

• Powers productivity

  
  First and foremost, a set time window for free breakfast encourages people to arrive at work on time. Breakfasts sync the schedules of teams, so they can make the most of a productive morning.
  
  Second, free breakfasts make life easier for them to accommodate the most important meal of the day, especially for those who struggle to fit a decent breakfast into their busy morning routine. Afterall all, who wants to guzzle down a supermarket-baked danish pastry when there are salmon and avocado baps in the office canteen – 1 minute away from their desks.

  So, with your whole team guaranteed a decent breakfast at work, they start the day with better morale and less stress.

  Tip: Serving the right kind of carbs found in ingredients such as oats, berries, and nuts will provide your employees with longer-lasting energy without sudden spikes that lead to a crash in energy. Furthermore, a good workplace caterer will know how to provide a breakfast menu that keeps your teams sustained right up to lunchtime.

• Stronger company culture

  
  Starting the working day with a shared meal is a fabulous way for employees to synergise before starting work. It ticks all the right boxes for people to feel connected, appreciated and energised. Jay Hum from Pivotal, writing for The Harvard Business Review, comments on the benefits free breakfasts has brought to his company,
  
  

  “You and I can grab a plate of healthy food and sit down at one of the tables in the cafeteria. It gives Pivotal employees and clients a daily window to discuss what they are currently working on, share war stories, and help each other.”
  

The cost-effective choice

Regular workplace breakfasts cost less than serving lunch. But it doesn’t take an economist to work out that providing healthy breakfasts every day ‘on the house’ becomes a sizable investment for a company with high headcounts and multiple locations. But just as employers invest in the latest software and tech to enhance workplace productivity, they can also invest in healthy workplace meals to help their employees work more efficiently.

One last factor to consider is the increased job retention rates that follow companies with a free food offering, saving considerable costs from recruitment, new hires and unfilled roles. 

Adapting a breakfast programme for your company

Whilst a breakfast buffet every day might be suitable for some companies, occasional breakfast orders might be more realistic for others. Here are some of the breakfast catering options available to workplaces: 

• Breakfast buffet: for encouraging teams back into the office and creating a welcoming environment
• Breakfast pop-ups: for celebrating and rewarding employees, drumming up excitement across the office
• Delivered boxed breakfast: for workplaces with low or fluctuating headcounts and budgetary limitations 
• Breakfast platters: for living up morning meetings and making an impression on clients 

Conclusion: reimagining the workplace 

Employers are facing the challenge to reimagine their workplace as a destination where employees feel productive and appreciated. Offering breakfast perks can be integral to your company’s ‘return to work’ strategy to create a more people-focused work environment by putting their wellbeing and happiness first. Liz Hilton Segel from McKinsey & Company, writing for The World Economic Forum, comments:

 “To truly build a more resilient workforce and rebuild the economy in 2021 and beyond, employers should prioritise wellbeing, which is the state of being comfortable, healthy or happy”

 

As hybrid working becomes the norm, workplaces are finding ways for employees to reconnect with colleagues. At the very least, employees should feel that it’s well worth braving the hectic commute to spend a day in the office. For most employees, starting work with healthy and free food is one heck of an incentive. 

So how can Fooditude help?

We deliver delicious meals straight to your London office from our 20,000 sq’ central production kitchen. This means adapting our catering services to your companies needs is as easy as pie. Discover more >