Happy & Healthy

LUNCHING TOGETHER, DELIVERING BETTER WORK

It's a few minutes before twelve; colleague A slowly turns around. ‘Are you guys coming to lunch?’ Colleague B whispers from behind her desk: ‘I'll just quickly grab something later, too much to do.’ Does this sound familiar? Then it's time to change that.

Nothing is as effective for team spirit and productivity as a joint lunch. Research shows that one in five Dutch employees eats lunch at their desk. 65% lunches with colleagues and just over half of employees go out during lunch. The average lunch lasts only 26 minutes, which is almost half the time our southern neighbors spend on lunch.

Last year, Kevin K. and his colleagues from Cornell University in NYC discovered that employees who eat together perform better. For the study, he and his team followed thirteen fire stations. Eating together was not mandatory, but in half of the cases, it was the norm. For employees on the evening shift, two meals were consumed, once at home and once with colleagues. What turned out? Firefighters who ate together scored twice as high on collaboration and group performance.

Look, that May, she gets it.

It's important that as a company you ensure that everything is available in the company so that no one is tempted to go out for lunch. The prime example is Google, which provides free meals in a not too clinical cafeteria.

Here in the editorial office, everyone has lunch together at half past twelve every day. Like hungry wolves, everyone dives into the two enormous bowls of salad. I haven't even mentioned Friday yet, because then it's the so-called fries day. Great for me, because then I can go wild on that pile of greens. And next to that salad, the table is filled with dozens of types of toppings (from truffle salami to beet hummus), crackers, sandwiches, and jars of peanut butter. Calvé is getting rich off us. I can just imagine you are now googling ‘vacancy Amayzine’. Look, that May, she gets it.

So if your boss complains about the fact that you take too long for lunch, you can now tell him/her why he/she should actually be happy about it.