Everyone has to eat. Most people like to eat as well, and this is why food can be key to boosting employee morale. If you’ve ever seen everyone’s eyes light up when someone walks into a conference room with a box of doughnuts, you probably know this already. If you’re a manager, though, how can you best harness the power of food to motivate your employees? There are a lot of different ways to use food as a morale booster, depending on what you’re trying to accomplish. The tips below will help you gather ideas on how to use food to improve employee morale.
Boosting Productivity
One of the most important management skills is knowing how to measure productivity and give an encouraging boost when appropriate. Everyone on the team has been working hard on a project, maybe even skipping lunch or pulling some late nights. If you provide lunch or dinner for everyone, you don’t have to suffer the loss of momentum that comes from people breaking away to eat. In addition, feeding your hard-working team promotes a feeling of camaraderie and generally positive vibes all around, despite the long hours.
Building Relationships
Communal meals can help employees get to know each other outside of a strict working environment. Taking the team out to lunch from time to time or providing a meal every few weeks or so gives people to opportunity to get to know one another better in a low-stakes environment. It’s good to make these types of meals frequent enough for people to form bonds, but not so frequent that it begins to feel like a burden. People like a free meal, but they also like to feel as though they have some autonomy regarding what they’ll do on their lunch hour. Another option is a potluck, as long as this doesn’t feel burdensome for your employees.
Balance Unpleasant Tasks
Are there times of year when the team has to pull together to do something tedious but necessary, such as inventory? Or maybe there’s a day that most of the company has off, but you’re running a skeleton crew of workers. Perhaps there’s a day every month where everyone is required to come in an hour or two early. Maybe you’ve got a team that’s primarily remote but that also has to make periodic in-person appearances. Whatever the situation, when coming into the office isn’t especially desirable for one reason or another, providing breakfast, pizza, or another treat for everyone can make a big difference in morale.
Food as Celebration
Cake or other treats to celebrate birthdays, work anniversaries, and accomplishments can make your team feel appreciated. Putting yourself in charge of organizing these celebrations rather than delegating it to a subordinate helps to demonstrate just how much you value everyone.
Some of your team may have different dietary restrictions or requirements, but this doesn’t have to make using food more fraught. In fact, being aware of and sensitive to those aspects is another way to demonstrate how important your staff is to you. Food shouldn’t be a substitute for supporting your employees in other ways, including providing constructive feedback and opportunities for growth. But it is a great way to let them know that you care about them as people and acknowledge their hard work.