As probably everyone knows by now, Google is famous for giving its employees free gourmet food. According to a recent Fortune article:
At Google it always comes back to the food. Google runs 11 free gourmet cafeterias at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters, and offers all its employees free gourmet meals.
In addition to its cafés, Google has snack rooms which contain various cereals, candy, nuts, yogurt, carrots, fresh fruit and other snacks, and dozens of different drinks including soda and make-your-own cappuccino.
At the Tokyo headquarters of my current employer we used to have also have a company cafeteria. While not free it was heavily subsidized and many employees used it each day. In order to save cost the company closed it some years ago. It was located in the windowless basement of the building and the food was nothing special so the closing was not all that unexpected as the number of users was slowly declining.
On the other I think what Google does is absolutely right on. (The picture to the left is from one of their campus restaurants.) I think other perks like dry cleaning, oil changes, car washes, concierge service, etc. are debatable. But food is something everyone needs at some point and, done right like at Google, can provide a place for employees to interact with each other in a casual and relaxed environment fostering communication. It also can help to keep them on the job longer when required and make the times when O/T might be required a little more enjoyable.
My father worked for GM. I can recall when I was growing up having lunch with him at the company cafeteria from time to time. It wasn’t free, but was probably heavily subsidized. I think this was also a benefit that employees like my father probably appreciated. Being able to share their work environment with their family.
Eating is a basic part of everyone’s daily schedule and when a company can see past just the basic cost of it and decide to use it as a tool for making employees time at work a little more enjoyable and a hopefully a little more effective, it can be turned into an asset of the company like it is at Google.
You can find more pictures of the available at Google here.