Jul. 27, 2018 "Eating lunch alone at work can have adverse effects": Today I found this article by Karyn Gordon in the Globe and Mail:
How many times did you eat your lunch alone this week?
According to a recent survey, while 68 per cent of working Canadians enjoy eating lunch with their colleagues, two-thirds of us eat lunch alone at least three times during the work week. Even worse, almost half (42 per cent) of working Canadians eat lunch alone every work day.
But it wasn’t always this way. Eating alone is not a natural human behaviour, but a learned one that seems to become more prevalent once we enter the work force.
When overwhelmed with work, lunch with colleagues can seem like a luxury, but eating alone can have adverse effects. Research has found that people who eat most meals alone may express feelings of loneliness and social isolation and, what’s more, eating in solitude is more strongly associated with unhappiness that any single factor other than having a mental illness.
Interestingly, this behaviour of eating alone continues even though working Canadians recognize the workplace benefits that arise as a result of eating with their colleagues,
including improved communication with colleagues, stronger relationships with coworkers, increased happiness and job satisfaction – not to mention greater productivity.
including improved communication with colleagues, stronger relationships with coworkers, increased happiness and job satisfaction – not to mention greater productivity.
The growing recognition of and research into the effects of eating together in the workplace have led some organizations to make eating together a priority. At Google, eating together is now ingrained in employees’ daily lives, whether they are chatting with colleagues over coffee or enjoying lunch together. Loblaw also actively encourages their employees to take the time to eat together.
Here are three tips to help employers kick-start the eat-together movement in their workplace.
DRAW UP A SCHEDULE
One of the biggest barriers to eating together is employees’ workloads – they’re often overwhelmed and consider lunch to be another precious hour for work.
To overcome this obstacle, employers should develop a schedule for staff to eat together regularly. Finding a reasonable rhythm (monthly or weekly is recommended for the most impact) can be very powerful for an organization’s culture. If eating together is regularly scheduled, staff will begin looking forward to it and will book their meetings around it to avoid missing the get-together.
LEAD BY EXAMPLE
Eating together is important for everyone, senior leaders included.
Change in the workplace is most impactful when employees see their employers getting involved, making it particularly critical for senior leaders to participate in the communal lunches. Doing so will set the tone for the organization’s more junior members who may be resistant to, or even skeptical of, the change in the workplace culture.
Providing the reason behind the change can also help to get buy-in from skeptics. Some staff will intuitively understand the importance of eating together, but others may be reluctant to it – understanding the “why” behind the shift in culture can be not only powerful but also persuasive.
SET THE STAGE
If regularly eating together is new for your organization, let employees know how the communal lunchtime will work. Should staff bring their own lunch, or will you host a potluck? Experience shows that potlucks can be effective for developing team culture – colleagues can get to know each other through the food they enjoy cooking and eating.
Kicking off the first few lunches with a simple question for everyone to answer can also help to break the ice, but it is important the question is fairly personal (“What’s everyone’s favourite summertime hobby?”) so that staff can more easily discover what they have in common.
Intimacy is also more likely to happen in groups of four, so consider investing in cruiser tables for colleagues to gather around. Smaller tables can also appeal to the introverts among your staff, who may feel less comfortable speaking in groups.
Finally, employees at organizations where eating together is not yet a priority should also feel empowered to be the change and to champion the eat together movement in their workplace.
Change can occur more organically without senior leaders on board: Find a spot for a communal lunch either in or out of the office, and send a calendar invite to the wider team.
We all need to eat, so why not eat together?
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/careers/leadership/article-eating-lunch-alone-again-has-adverse-effects/
It says there are 19 comments, but I can only read 4:
It says there are 19 comments, but I can only read 4:
"Years ago a manager I worked for made the comment "You have your work friends and you have your real friends - don't ever confuse the two". Ironically this comment was made at a lunch with a small group of co-workers.
It was sound advice and has served me well in avoiding getting dragged through a lot of the petty office politics that so many people get caught up in. Some co-workers have become real friends over time but only because we had shared interests beyond the office.
I have two ground rules that have made my life infinitely better. 1) Divide work life from social life and 2) use work breaks to get some time to yourself and recharge. Why? When most of your friends come from your work, during your social time, people talk about work. When you eat with co-workers at work, people tend to complain about work and bosses often use this time to hold impromptu meetings. I have been much happier since I've applied these two rules to my life as I rarely talk about work outside work, and rarely hear the constant complaining nor do I get trapped in these impromptu meetings.
Having free time at lunch should be just that - free. If you want to eat with co-workers, great! If you need some time to yourself, that`s also great! Each employee should be treated like an adult who can decide for themselves what they do at lunch.
Hello Dr. Gordon. Two points to add.
It is not a communal atmosphere when most who have gathered in the lunchroom are tapping away on their cell phones. How do you change this entrenched mindset when a handheld device wins out over human interaction?
The other issue is workers who eat not just lunch at their desk and graze throughout the day. The smells of different foods- herbs and spices, fish, et al, wafting from the localized microwave and into the work area- the noise of crunchy eating and slurping distracting from work. I will not even get into the issue of conversing about work with a worker whose mouth is full, or cheeks puffed out like chipmunks.
You can talk to your co-workers about this and they treat it as a joke, or they acknowledge the concerns but continue to carry on with the same habits. We are talking about quit smoking- like issues. The employer is no help as they engage in the same behaviour.
"The best workplace recruit may be hiding in plain sight": Today I found this article by Roger Hardy in the Globe and Mail:
It’s hard to say what shone brighter in the Coastal Contacts call centre back in 2012: Derek Desierto’s positive attitude, or his unapologetically colourful cardigans.
Even in his entry-level role as customer support specialist, it was clear he had something special, not to mention a flair for style. But back then, I never would have guessed that he would go on to help design one of Coastal’s − and Canada’s − most iconic eyewear lines.
A few years later, you couldn’t walk down the street in any major Canadian city without spotting a pair of Derek Cardigan glasses − recognizable by the signature math symbols on the temples. With help from Derek in his new designer role, Coastal grew to $225-million in revenue from $60-million in just a few years. He was one of the best internal promotions we ever made.
When you’re a fast-growing startup, promoting from within isn’t just smart, it’s a matter of economic necessity. You can’t afford established all-stars, and getting a brand-new employee up to speed can take up to two years − an eternity when you’re scaling.
But more importantly, promoting from within is the ultimate culture-builder. The people who are already going above and beyond in their roles believe in your company’s mission and vision. When you give them greater responsibility − and a bigger platform – they become beacons that others will follow. Here’s how to find, and nurture, the raw talent within your ranks.
Get out of your corner office and onto the front lines
With his passion and people skills, Derek was great in his call centre role. But I never would have noticed him had I not been spending time in the call centre myself.
At Coastal, our executives would join in for a few calls each week with our customer service staff. It was a valuable practice on multiple levels. Our leadership team got crucial insight into our customers’ experiences and concerns − but they could also identify exceptional new employees who were committed, enthusiastic and inspiring. From there, we could take concrete steps to nurture that potential.
Once we saw Derek’s eye for style, we invited him into our design meetings, where he blew us away with his take on eyewear trends. Then we set him up with mentors further up the chain who could coach him through the process of product development.
Flag the keeners who go beyond 9 to 5
As great as someone is at a job, the role itself can mask their talent by limiting them to a select set of tasks.
Noticing who shows up for extracurriculars − even fun or goofy ones − is a great way to uncover hidden capacities. At Coastal, we had a number of employee-driven activities, like a book club and an early-morning hiking group. That’s where Nancy Morrison emerged on my radar.
Nancy started out directing our operations when we were tiny − just 20 people or so. But as we grew, her knack for motivating and organizing a bigger, more diverse group became evident in the way she participated in events, like showing up for a 6 a.m. hike before work, or co-ordinating a lip dub music video with our entire office.
As we grew, Nancy emerged as a natural leader − wherever she went, people followed − eventually becoming our vice-president of operations when our company was at its peak of 750 employees.
Promote your problem assassins
Enthusiasm and engagement go a long way, but ultimately you need to be sure your diamond in the rough will indeed shine when faced with a challenge. My test for this is simple: hand them a problem, and see if they come back with a solution.
Back in 2010, we were essentially the first people trying to sell glasses online. By far the biggest hurdle for customers was that they couldn’t physically try the glasses on. We presented this conundrum to another outstanding customer-service rep named Braden Hoeppner, who had developed a reputation as the guy who could find an answer for any problem. He came back with an idea that was so good that it’s now industry standard: the virtual mirror, which lets you see how any pair of glasses looks on your own face. Braden eventually went on to become our CMO.
These days, all three of these superstars are doing exceptional things with the talents we helped them develop at Coastal. Nancy moved to a leadership role at organic food delivery service Spud before going on to FYidoctors, a chain of optometry clinics. Braden is the CMO for SAXX, a line of men’s underwear.
As for Derek, he went on to design school in New York after the success of his eyewear line. Now, with some formal training under his belt, he’s not only an in-demand illustrator but back in the eyewear game. We still work closely together − in fact, we might even be launching something exciting soon. It’s no surprise to me that each of these all-stars are leaders in their own right. True talent doesn’t stay hidden for long.
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