.png?width=2000&height=650&name=Top%20Days%20in%20the%20Office%20(1).png "Top days in the office employee engagement trends")
In a world where the office landscape constantly shifts, understanding office trends and making agile adjustments can be the difference between a bustling workspace and a deserted one.
In 2023, 77% of Fortune 100 companies opted for a hybrid strategy. This winning approach allows companies to foster in-office collaboration and innovation while letting employees enjoy remote flexibility.
"Hybrid is a good formula, but needs a consistency of people in the office and the buy-in as an organization to create the ideal workplace experience," says Crafty COO Chris Ritter. "There are factors that need to be in place for it to work. Nothing is more frustrating than commuting 45 minutes to an office with no one there and sitting on video calls all day."
To avoid this, 32% of organizations opt for a structured hybrid, which is an approach that has set in-office expectations by using food and beverage to drive employees into the office on consistent days. Streamlining office traffic allows employees to harness the full power of face-to-face collaboration, resulting in a better workplace culture.
Explore how leading companies use technology-driven food and beverage programs to create a productive and engaging workplace.
The key to success lies in having a platform that provides consistent reporting on services and consumption to predict office traffic trends. Online marketplaces like Amazon, Costco or Instacart may give you order information, but that's where they stop. They're not keeping track of your inventory and cannot tell you what days or months consumption is higher or lower.
The quickest way to blow through your office food and beverage budget is fragmented or uninformed ordering across locations that don't align with your workplace habits. It simply doesn't make sense to have milk or fresh produce deliveries on a Friday when office traffic is nonexistent, and it's left to expire over the weekend. You may as well just toss your money out the window.
Technology is the key to understanding your traffic patterns to better plan your inventory and deliveries.
- Historical Spend Data: Use historical spending reports to understand monthly traffic trends throughout the year. For example, our data across 300+ offices tells us that December tends to be a lower-spending month, most likely due to the holidays. Therefore, it may be wise to plan for that and allocate that spend toward higher traffic months like March without increasing your budget.
- Automated Ordering: Automation is not the same as scheduled reordering. Scheduled reordering from online marketplaces, just reorder your products at a specific time based on the schedule you set. At Crafty, our order automation tools respond to the inventory levels our team records in our system so that orders only get placed when product inventory hits a minimum threshold. This data stream helps understand the ebbs and flows of office traffic and refine an order and delivery schedule.
In a hybrid environment where traffic fluctuates, the Crafty Platform makes it easy to record, learn and adjust quickly to accommodate. Workplace teams can parse through their unique data to predict workplace trends and prepare.
.png "Seneca Quote (1)")
FEATURED SPOTLIGHT:
.png?width=529&height=92&name=Sprout%20Social%20Crafty%20Case%20Study%20(1).png)
"We're passionate about food, and it's always been a cornerstone of our company culture."
At Crafty HQ, the top day in the office is Tuesday, and guess what? Free lunch is provided. Coincidence? We think not!
Consumer research from Sharebite showed that 97% of office professionals surveyed said that taking a break for lunch improves their workday, with almost one in three saying that meal benefits would encourage them to be in the office more often.
A hybrid workplace strategy only works when employees realize the true value of the in-office experience, and a free meal is an easy tool to get employees to come in at the same time. Harvard Business Review and Cornell University studies reveal that sharing meals with colleagues at work enhances employee morale and productivity. In-office meals maximize productivity, collaboration, and overall happiness, resulting in a livelier in-office experience worth commuting for.
Free lunch is the ultimate crowd-pleaser, and it takes work to achieve consistently across multiple locations. Companies want to provide local favorites, but having numerous orders and receipts is a nightmare for finance teams. Crafty partners like ezCater for local restaurant delivery to deliver that tailored catering experience with centralized invoicing. Some say it's the best of both worlds!
