Office/Work Kitchen

I work for one of the worlds largest IT companies. They supply free water (which I think they are legally required to do) and that's it. It's not such a big deal (cost) for a smaller company to offer free tea and coffee and can potentially aid productivity / improve morale. But when you employee over (say) 100,000 people around the world. offering subsidised refreshments can become an expensive burden.

In my current local office, there is a vending machine with crisps and chocs and another with crap coffee, chicken soup etc. There is a fridge, microwave and kettle. A group of us (about 25 or so people I guess) paid £80 a year for unlimited access to "proper" coffee (passable drip filter and an ok nespresso machine), milk and tea. I don't think that this cost is entirely unreasonable given the cost of those Nespresso pods and you can always just bring your own coffee/tea/milk if you prefer.

In the last office in which I worked (same company), there were no tea making facilities but an onsite canteen and a costa coffee who would charge 10p for people with their own tea bags who just wanted a cup of hot water and milk.

Employees obviously have no "right" to free beverages. If it's important to you, check with your potential employer what they provide before you sign a contract with them.
 
gEd said:
I work for one of the worlds largest IT companies. They supply free water (which I think they are legally required to do) and that's it. It's not such a big deal (cost) for a smaller company to offer free tea and coffee and can potentially aid productivity / improve morale. But when you employee over (say) 100,000 people around the world. offering subsidised refreshments can become an expensive burden.
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I guess it depends on the value of the workers to the company - some large IT companies might well employ large numbers of not so well paid staff, others like google etc.. will have mostly rather expensive staff and will see value in saving time at lunch by providing it to them for free etc... the cost of lunch for the company is nothing compared to the time value of those staff members, plus it doubles up as an employee benefit and costs the company less to provide than it would cost the employee to buy an equivalent meal elsewhere.
 
dowie said:
I guess it depends on the value of the workers to the company - some large IT companies might well employ large numbers of not so well paid staff, others like google etc.. will have mostly rather expensive staff and will see value in saving time at lunch by providing it to them for free etc... the cost of lunch for the company is nothing compared to the time value of those staff members, plus it doubles up as an employee benefit and costs the company less to provide than it would cost the employee to buy an equivalent meal elsewhere.
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Absolutely. Ultimately, it's a business decision. I know of one significant design company who apparently have a bar in their office. A freaking bar! At the end of the day, all that matters from a business perspective is their creative output and if a bar helps, then so be it.

When I first started my career in 1645 and moved to London from the boonies, I worked for a small software company. They sent my buddy and I (the juniors) out to the supermarket every monday morning to spend £150 on food for lunch for the team (of 10) for the week. This meant that everyone stayed in the office, socialised over lunch and didn't have to go wandering off to buy lunch which was a 15min walk away. It was a win win for employees and employer. As an aside, it was also a catalyst for my elevated interest in food as I thought to myself, why spend 50p on a poxy small tub of (say) bean salad when I can buy all the ingredients separately and make a vat of better tasting salad that feeds more people for less overall cost...So that is what I did and I became the office "chef".
 
It's pretty good where I work, given that we are flunkies. Tea, coffee and hot chocolate from machines is free. Instant coffee and chocolate, but it's not horrible instant. Bag in box soft drinks are sold at about 20p a pint. Some food is sold at a discount, sometimes discounted to cost which means a huge discount given that markups of 500% or even more are commonplace in catering (e.g. a pint of Coke in a pub costs rather a lot more than 20p). The staff room has a microwave and a fridge and a kettle, so you can bring your own stuff in too (and it's never taken by anyone else).

What we don't get is breaks. Not any more. Used to be 15 minutes if you worked for more than 4 hours, but that went a while back. So food and drink only in the splits between shifts.

Pretty good, considering. Better than many places.
 
adolf hamster said:
Plus ofc sitting on your ass all day is neither healthy nor comfortable
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It's a lot more healthy and comfortable than having to stand up all day even when working with equipment specifically designed and built to be used while seated. Try standing at your desk, hunched over to use your computer on your desk or whatever. Then try it for hours at a time. Day after day.

In this country, being allowed to sit is a status symbol. Lower status workers often aren't allowed to sit even if they would work more efficiently seated. The wish to cause them pain and chronic medical problems (prolonged standing is a huge risk factor for chronic circulatory and musculo-skeletal problems) in order to rub their face in their inferior status is a stronger motive than even profit. It's illegal, of course, but the law hasn't really been enforced since WW2 (when increased efficiency was temporarily seen as being more important than keeping the peasants in their place).
 
Local Government here... We get free hot and cold water and that's it. We have to provide our own milk, tea and coffee.

Vending machine and canteen is available, but not exactly cheap IMO
 
Free tea, coffee and hot chocolate and a larder full of free milk (semi and skimmed). We can order buffets if we have guests, but that is expected.

We have a oven (with hob), a george foreman grill, a microwave and a kettle but it's rare that the oven or grill is used.

I drink water or squash so I don't really care for the free tea, but I've also worked in places where you were expected to bring your own.
 
We get free tea, coffee and milk and a "subsidised" canteen which charges more for a cup of coffee than the Costa around the corner.... :o

Canteen used to serve free tea and coffee as well but they realised they weren't making any money (well duh!).
 
No alcohol allowed in my industry, but tea/coffee is free. But other than tea, I tend to go and buy myself proper coffee outside of the office. Though we've bought a nespresso machine, whilst not perfect, is a lot nicer than instant coffee.
 
A previous company i worked for introduced ordering pizza for their warehouses on a Friday. In introducing this, they found people tended to work through their lunch-break more and were generally less sluggish when packing orders at the end of the week (motivation boost?). They also saw generally less absences and more people braving a bit of man flu to come in and do their time when they usually would just take a sick day and a three day weekend. Not saying people came in for pizza but when the company pays for pizza, the team to eat and socialise together, so it probably helps create a more fun work atmosphere on a friday. A cheap discounted order from a local pizza place was likely worth it for them.
 
We have free fruit, free drinks, the coffee machine is even a 10 grand one from WMF. I guess we're fortunate on the kitchen front.
 
Angilion said:
It's a lot more healthy and comfortable than having to stand up all day even when working with equipment specifically designed and built to be used while seated. Try standing at your desk, hunched over to use your computer on your desk or whatever. Then try it for hours at a time. Day after day.

In this country, being allowed to sit is a status symbol. Lower status workers often aren't allowed to sit even if they would work more efficiently seated. The wish to cause them pain and chronic medical problems (prolonged standing is a huge risk factor for chronic circulatory and musculo-skeletal problems) in order to rub their face in their inferior status is a stronger motive than even profit. It's illegal, of course, but the law hasn't really been enforced since WW2 (when increased efficiency was temporarily seen as being more important than keeping the peasants in their place).
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so your telling me being seated, twitching a mouse staring at a pc screen is more healthy than walking around outside in the fresh air? :rolleyes:
 
Have a fairly decent bean to cup coffee machine. (Also a ping pong table and racing gaming pc setup :p)

Often have a few beers in the fridge for Fridays from the boss.
 
Angilion said:
It's a lot more healthy and comfortable than having to stand up all day even when working with equipment specifically designed and built to be used while seated. Try standing at your desk, hunched over to use your computer on your desk or whatever. Then try it for hours at a time. Day after day.

In this country, being allowed to sit is a status symbol. Lower status workers often aren't allowed to sit even if they would work more efficiently seated. The wish to cause them pain and chronic medical problems (prolonged standing is a huge risk factor for chronic circulatory and musculo-skeletal problems) in order to rub their face in their inferior status is a stronger motive than even profit. It's illegal, of course, but the law hasn't really been enforced since WW2 (when increased efficiency was temporarily seen as being more important than keeping the peasants in their place).
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Actually sitting for hours is hugely detrimental to your health/musculoskeletal health. So a mixture of standing/sitting is ideal really.

I have a standing desk that can easily converted to seated/standing - it's been a God send. However, I'm hugely into kinesiology owing to the gym work I do and keeping good mobility.

I don't think I get the "status" symbol you're talking about with regards to sitting behind a desk. Furthermore, the meetings/workshops I run generally tend to be on your feet - having measured outputs, the meeting with those standing produce significantly more interesting propositions than those sat round a conference room. so much so, that all my meetings have no tables in them, and just chairs in a circle - easier to engage with people and easier to move the chairs out of the way when we run our workshops.

Just some food for thought. :)
 
we have a cold water tap and a not-so-cold water tap.

we also have one of those water boilers that boils the same water over and over again for hours, giving a nice metallic tasting hot beverage.
 
When I worked at Play.com they had basic provisions. The good part was free CD's/ book and occasionally games (all samples). Of course they were never great titles but I discovered some interesting music because of it.

Current - start-up Biotech. We have an espresso machine, filter coffee and instant. Free tea/coffee & fruit and the occasional lunch. Used to have a monthly free food Friday which was great, we then gave people the option of this, or regular free fruit, and well, you can see what they chose.
 
I work for MS. They provide...

Free tea, coffee & hot choc (various different teas but I don't touch the stuff so don't know much) - coffee is Nespresso pods, damn tasty. Free sandwiches, fruit and yoghurt drinks. I make use of almost all of it, everyday. I now buy less fruit at home as I used to take fruit into work but now instead just get it at work.

My gf works for a small firm specializing in luxury hotel and they don't give her a damn thing bar water. I think its outrageous.
 
I work in a uni, just the 2 of us in our office.

We have a fridge, microwave and kettle. We supply the tea and milk etc.

I've never worked for a company that provides anything, so I'm used to it. I do miss cake Fridays, which I had at my previous workplace, that was always a nice way to end the week.
 
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