
What's The Value of a Free Lunch? - mike2477
http://blog.highfive.com/whats-the-value-of-a-free-lunch
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scelerat
I've always valued a midday walk in fresh air, away from my desk. I'm happy to
do it with co-workers.

At the two places I've worked that offered the free lunch, there was a lot of
pressure to stay in the office for the lunch, both implicit and explicit. I
felt the free lunch offer was not so much a boon to my productivity but as an
encroachment on my personal time.

Perhaps only coincidentally, I felt those two companies also had many problems
understanding their engineering and creative employees and their needs,
probably familiar to a lot of HN folks: flexible working hours, office layout,
transparency, etc.

~~~
Einstalbert
Our company has been in hot water for not properly compensating employees
during our "free lunch / trainings" that we hold every so often. Yes, you're
giving them free food, no they don't get a choice and yes that's illegal. Pay
up, clueless managers.

~~~
mattm
I was new at a company that did this. We had to submit weekly timesheets. No
one told me the procedure but I figured, everyone attended so I figured
marking down 30 minutes (out of 60) on the time on the timesheet billed to the
company was a fair deal.

A few days later a company-wide email was sent out specifying that these
trainings were optional and not to be billed to the company.

They did pay me for the time though that time.

~~~
Einstalbert
Ah, what a joke. I recall someone not putting it on their timesheet and
instead going directly to the Department of Labor. Good on them, I say. I've
got a vested interested in the company doing well, but that was a ridiculous
policy.

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moron4hire
I cannot imagine being in an environment where everyone was so gung-ho about
"The Mission" that they all took lunch together in the office. It sounds
cultish. It would creep me out.

When I worked in an office, I was there to do a job. I was there to get work
done and go home. I had my own things I wanted to do. The company pays me for
40 hours a week. Nothing more. They don't deserve any more.

And my side projects are mine and I will do with them as I wish, not volunteer
them on the altar of 10% time. Maybe if (proverbial) I weren't trapped in the
office all the time with free lunches and rock climbing walls I wouldn't need
the company to bestow upon me the extreme privilege of doing what I want with
a small portion of my time.

Why does this math even make sense? Why wouldn't people just leave half an
hour early?

Also, reminds me of factory work. We all took lunch breaks together. Sat in
the provided lunch area. It was well understood you were expected to be back
to work in half an hour or your ass was grass.

Also also, reminds me of school. Get on the bus. Go to class. Do what you're
told. Read what you're told. Think what you're told. Eat this lunch that we
have provided for your maximal nutritional value at minimal cost/benefit
ratio, strategically balanced to avoid inciting a riot.

Fuck. That. Shit. I'm an adult and a professional. I'll take two hours for
lunch on my own dollar, thank you. I've got potential clients to entertain as
I plan my exit out of your Branch Davidian complex.

~~~
arbuge
Dang. You give people a free lunch and this is how they react...

~~~
moron4hire
TANSTAAFL

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pyrrhotech
The math is off. Employers PAY the average employee $35/hour, but they get >
$35/hour value out of the employee---or else they would go out of business.
The employer's margin varies widely, but is often at least 2x.

However, I feel that when I had a free lunch I wasn't that much more
productive. I need breaks during the day. I'm going to take them whether or
not you give me a free lunch.

~~~
nirkalimi
I agree that taking breaks more often is needed -- Although I would also say
that going to get your own lunch is extra required "work".

The idea here is the average worker doesn't have to worry about it. The less
they worry about or "work" on things outside of work, the more they can exert
energy at work.

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kchoudhu
Am I alone in wanting to get away from the people I work with for an hour
every day for lunch?

~~~
guyzero
I get a free lunch at work every day and some days I take it and eat it by
myself. It's not always necessary to be social.

~~~
kchoudhu
That's a good start. It's not just hanging out with the same people though:
it's also a change of scenery. I find that a sammich on the park bench knocks
the morning's clutter away and makes me more productive in the afternoon.

The Henry Ford-esque desire to treat programmers like a resource to be
relentlessly milked (we can save half an hour or dev time!) is a bit of a
turnoff.

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sheetjs
Don't forget tax advantages: if structured properly, the costs are tax
deductible for the employer and do not count as additional revenue for the
employee.

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goo
I'm not sure that humans' productive output can be modeled so simply (hours
working -> amount produced). It's a bold assumption that the primary value of
lunch on campus is to increase "hours worked".

I think that the other goals suggested in the article -- more frequent
communication, and better friendships -- are most likely more valuable than
the time gained, and perhaps significantly so.

Furthermore, there are still a few benefits associated with feeding employees
that weren't mentioned.

Among them:

\-- reduced cognitive load from meal choices (better focus, even
subconsciously, on other things)

\-- healthier options, since in-house food is not subject to competitive
market pressures which force it to make its food more addictive and less
healthy.

and what I feel like is the most important:

\-- employee retention. People are wired to get pleasure from being fed [1],
and getting pleasure from something usually makes you like it, so it is not a
stretch to consider that being fed by a group may increase feelings of loyalty
and belonging to that group, or at the very least make you like the experience
of being fed by them.

From an employee retention perspective, which is one of the sorest spots in
the tech industry in terms of lost productivity (workers leaving causes huge
knowledge gaps and lost time), free meals make employees happy both
consciously (money saved by employee = happiness) and subconsciously (being
fed = happiness)

Of course, if every company does it it may not help. But the absence will
definitely hurt, so it's likely always going to be the best option!

[1] -
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004012/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3004012/)

~~~
yaur
Employee retention and helping teams get and stay gelled is the real reason to
do this, but the "hours worked" argument is a useful tool for convincing
skeptical execs.

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pasbesoin
"Zero", at one company I worked at. As they tried to argue when, a year or so
after going public, they took it away.

Ironically, they were very big into presenting "total compensation" as a
larger-than-your-salary number to wave around demonstrating just how much they
were giving you.

Funny when "free lunch" was not part of that, because it better aided their
(pretty weak) argument.

Remember, TANSTAAFL.

P.S. I do take others' points, e.g. that it is advantageous to structure and
argue in a manner that has tax benefits.

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geetee
I rather take a full lunch hour and pay for my food than get it for free, but
only take 30 minutes.

~~~
guyzero
The issue with some suburban companies is that there's wasted travel time that
benefits neither the company nor the employee (unless they like traveling I
guess).

Suburban office workers might easily take 30 minutes or more to get to where
they want to eat lunch, regardless of how long they take to eat it. In reality
the trade off is taking an hour to eat and getting it for free (because you
don't travel) versus paying for it and only getting 30 minutes.

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nanleonaliu
So glad this topic is brought up on HN and great to see all the comments
around it. Taking a lunch break, with co-workers or not, paid by employers or
not, is the most natural thing that has been practiced by people for hundreds
of years in all cultures. It is not only pleasant, productive, but also
necessary.

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31reasons
>>Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a company with about 750 employees, recently put
sensors on 30 of their employees to track the tone and frequency of their
lunch conversations.

Whats next? A/B Testing the food ?

~~~
sireat
That is getting uncomfortably close to Neuromancer territory:

"M-G employees above a certain level were implanted with advanced
microprocessors that monitored mutagen levels in the bloodstream. Gear like
that would get you rolled in Night City, rolled straight into a black clinic."

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vitamen
The half hour savings isn't really a thing if people take the free lunch, eat
it at their desks while they work, then go and take an hour "lunch" later in
the day anyway (as happens with some at my office, though the free lunch comes
just once a week).

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iambateman
So just because I got lunch I'm going to be free to work an extra half hour?

There's no way that's sustainable. Like @goo mentioned, more hours doesn't
equal more produced, by any means.

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rdl
I think not having your employees discussing sensitive work in public
restaurants around your office (thus easily monitored by competitors) is worth
something, too.

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guyzero
Apple doesn't actually offer free food I believe. It's heavily subsidized, but
it's not technically free.

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whyenot
The real advantage of the 1/2 hour lunch is that then you can have a nice
(mostly) guilt free afternoon nap :)

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mantrax4
So the business person inside me is thinking: "What if I charge for that
lunch, but keep the price lower than competing venues in the area. I'll get
even more money!"

~~~
xyzzy123
You just invented the company cafeteria :)

A "you pay" (but sometimes subsidised) on premise cafeteria exists at lots of
large technology / engineering companies.

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a8da6b0c91d
The free lunch buffet is of zero value to me because I don't want to eat any
of that stuff. I habitually just have two pints of 1% milk and a pint of OJ
for lunch.

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kimonos
Great insight.. But I also believe that there are pros and cons accompanying
this idea. Nice post though!

