It may sound very surprising to you that the type of snacks in your office can have serious effect in your health, mind and productivity. In short, your office snacks can be your friend or foe if you do not consider the ultimate case for office food walking through the different scenarios.
When you walk into your office on a Monday morning ready to get down to work and greeted by the receptionist with a plate full of donuts, you may be a bit tempted to choose the glazed one having sprinkles. When you eat it you immediately feel sluggish and foggy and feel that you have a wasted opportunity to give the best in your office.
Why? The reason is unhealthy food especially those foods that contains high fat and sugar. These foods will cause serious negative effects on your brain. This will eventually determine the way in which the rest of your day will go. Therefore, you should know the type of food that you should eat in your office so that it does not affect your health and productivity.
You may tend to think that skipping food in your office may be the best solution to this and you may even come across several articles on the internet that will even say that having food in the office is bad. They may suggest that it will contribute to your expanding waist lines and also result in sugar crashes that are mostly seen in employees. However, this is not true and having food in the office is extremely important.
Advantages of having food
Apart from the health benefits, having food in the office has several other advantages as well.
- It brings people together. Office food is a perk that almost all employees love and find to be a perfect boost to their productivity.
- At this point, almost every business organization offers some type of office food for free every now and then. This encourages people to work more and harder, like the company’s attitude and ambience.
- In turn, it helps the company to stay competitive in the market with desired retention of talent.
However, the food becomes a foe and unproductive for the employees when companies provide unhealthy food such as pizzas, donuts, cakes and bagels. Ideally, to make the food work for the benefit of the company as well as the employees, companies must focus on providing their employees with healthy food and snack options. it is only then the company will achieve the balance between providing a great perk to their employees and at the same time make sure that the employees are healthy.
Eat healthy snacks at work
Therefore, no matter what type of free office snacks is made available to you, you must always select and stick to eating healthy foods only. However, this does not mean you will only have broccoli and kale lying in the kitchen but the key is to choose healthier alternatives from the typical office foods such as cookies.
- The best way to start is gradually getting rid of those jelly-filled donuts. Rather you should go for something else that is sweet but healthy may be in the form of fruit and yogurt parfaits.
- As for the lunches apply the same principle and gradually sub out salad and turkey sandwiches for pizza.
When you have an office that provides these food alternatives as well, it will be good for you as well as the business on the whole.
Surprising Benefits Of Good Food
Here are some surprising advantages that are inherent to good office foods:
- To attract top talent you will need a kitchen in your office that has more than a rundown coffeemaker, a vending machine, and a quality office water cooler. If you stick to these gone old days, you will soon find your working talents gone as well. You will need to have a fully-stocked kitchen with high-quality snacks to attract prospective hires.
- You will also meet the expectations of the millennial who normally expect much more today than before when it comes to workplace incentives and good quality free food acts as topping. This perk features high in their list and is non-negotiable at the same time.
- The potential hires not only look for perks when they are interviewed but it also acts as a contributing factor to their decision whether or not they will take up the job. It is found through different studies such as the one conducted by USA Today that more that 48% potential hires weigh the perks available including availability of office snacks when then look for a new job and decide finally whether or not to take it up.
- It retains as well as lures employees to new companies. According to the same study it was in fact found that 66% of the potential hires said that they will switch jobs in a different company if they found that the workplace perks offered there were better than the current one.
- Good free food does not only help a company to retain the A-players around but will also encourage them to come to work. Apart from creating a healthy workplace, good food availability will also create a fun environment in which the employees will love to work.
- There will be more friends at work than foes sharing their breakfasts and lunches together talking about their work and workplace environment. This way more friends will be created and coworker bonds will be further strengthened. It will help in building a good proactive team with all members much more likely to tackle difficult projects.
Therefore, office food will bring people together, get along well with each other, and break the ice if any especially when there are new employees in the mix. In short, free office food is much like holiday meals that bring a family together. The inviting office kitchen will bring people together organically and help them swap ideas and brainstorm on different projects in a more inviting, relaxing and comfortable environment.
