

Would an in-house coffee waiter improve your team productivity?  - hoodoof

Imagine someone whose job it is to keep peoples coffee cups full, thereby removing the productivity destroying trips to the kitchen.  Would this improve your team productivity?
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ColinWright
I don't have my copy of "PeopleWare" to hand, but I think that is where I read
this story ...

A company brought in an external consultant to look at how to improve
productivity in the software and engineering sections of the company. After
two weeks they reported back and recommended the hiring of a "coffee lady" -
someone to bring around biscuits, fruit, sandwiches, and hot beverages. This
would save the programmers and engineers from making "productivity-sapping
visits to the kitchen, water cooler, etc."

The recommendation was implemented, and over the next few months productivity
fell. At a loss, a further study was commissioned.

It was found that although time was taken to visit the kitchen and stand by
the water cooler, and some of the time "wasted" was spent in talking about
football, dates, and other non-work related topics, some of the time was spent
explaining a problem, and having a colleague say "I had that problem last
week/month/year, and here's how I solved it ..."

The benefits of sharing information far, _far_ outweighed the apparent losses
in efficiency. The best thing you can do is increase the interaction, without
causing more loss of time at desk. Encourage people to visit the facilities at
the same time, provide whiteboards and pens, provide a shared workstation,
have doughnuts and sandwiches delivered at predictable times.

Increase the communication within and across teams.

Don't force them to stay at their desks.

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to3m
With coffee cups never empty, there will be a significant amount of diuretic
liquid poured into your team's collective digestive systems.

This can lead to only one result - more productivity-destroying trips away
from the desk!

Will you try to solve this in the same manner?

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psyklic
I use coffee trips as an excuse to get up and move around, as opposed to
sitting at my computer 10 hours straight. I would probably drink more coffee
with a waiter, but I would still invent excuses to get out of my chair every
now and then, if only to stretch.

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sdfjkl
I'd ask them to please not service me and would continue my irregular trips to
the kitchen to get a cup of tea. The reasons for this are:

\- I do my tea trips during natural pauses in my work (between tasks, stuck on
a problem, waiting for the computer, feeling tired) while the coffee refills
would interrupt whatever I'm doing and cause me to lose focus

\- Breaks are good for your creativity - when stuck on a problem I regularly
get great solutions when I stop "actively" focusing on it and get a cup of tea
(or do other small AFK tasks).

\- In the office kitchen I bump into users (I develop in-house software) and
get immediate feedback, which is often the most valuable kind.

\- Getting up from your chair is good for your posture, blood circulation,
etc.

All of these make me more productive, not less.

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ayers
Like others have stated, I use going to the kitchen as a stretch for my
muscles. I find that getting up away from the desk and walking around helps
break up the working day. Without these breaks I know that my productivity
would drop, especially in the afternoons.

The same goes for working through lunch. I often find myself doing this in
order to complete all the work I have on my plate. What I am trying to force
myself to do is actually get out of the office and at the very least go for a
walk outside. More often than not I am a lot more productive in the afternoons
when I take a decent break for lunch. Working straight through lunch is a bad
habit to get into.

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KoryFerbet
Hmm...I think it would have some benefits. The biggest issue I could see is
that people need to walk around. I know when I walk down the block to get a
coffee it's less about the coffee and more about getting the chance to walk
outside and stretch my legs a little bit.

You also might have to introduce a system to give everyone a catheter since
the more coffee you drink the more trips to the restroom you'll be taking.

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chris_dcosta
I've often thought that a school bell that rings every 40 minutes would also
be a good idea in a working environment. Especially if there was enforced
playtime too.

I'm not joking about this, I really think structured work/play is a valid
idea. if I ever get enough staff I'll try it out on all of them. We'll see
where it goes...

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moocow01
How about instead a caffeine drip put into everyone's arm when they get into
the office in the morning? Seriously though - people need to move around... I
don't think there is a need to optimize coffee breaks. If people don't have
breaks you'll see a drop in productivity rather than a gain.

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waqf
I go to the kitchen because I need to stretch my legs, not because I actually
need the coffee. If the coffee came to my desk, I'd have to find another
excuse to take a two minute break and walk around. Take up smoking, perhaps.

