A Metamorphosis Of Office Culture

Traditional offices are becoming less and less ‘traditional’. More offices are understanding and supporting a work/life balance. Software analytics company SAS, located in North Carolina, goes above and beyond by providing employees with facilities to swim, get a haircut or go to the doctor. That business resembles the type of office culture that can be found at companies such as Google, Doximity and Yahoo to name a few. Yes, this company culture is an anomaly most operators have only ever heard about, but there are some operators providing services to these companies and others like them. And you could be next.

The role of vending in offices will experience a metamorphosis over the next few years, and it is important to understand the upcoming office culture in order to change with location demands.

The office of the future…is here

As we reported in our September issue, The Classic Group, located in Chicago, IL, provides more than just vending service to several locations. The locations ask them to provide dispensed fruits and even cold-brew coffee in kegs.

On the other side of the scale, some locations are looking for more creative ways to recruit and retain employee. According to the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), employee benefits are becoming harder for employers to offer due to their rising cost. Some companies are compensating in other ways such as offering more opportunities for employees to work from home, take longer lunch breaks and have flextime during business hours.

Here are some facts from SHRM that may help operators see how rapidly offices are changing:

• The number of organizations offering a health care premium discount for participating in a wellness program increased from 9 percent in 2010 to 14 percent in 2014.
• The number of organizations offering a paid vacation plan dropped from 44 percent in 2010 to 40 percent in 2014. Paid personal days dropped from 29 percent to 22 percent in the same period.
• The number of organizations allowing employees to telecommute increased from 55 percent in 2010 to 59 percent in 2014. Telecommuting on an ad-hoc basis jumped from 44 percent to 54 percent in the same period.

Know the role

The office culture is changing, slowly but surely. The economy, the need for a work/life balance, rising costs and stretched budgets all influence the culture of an office. Where some companies will offer employees many perks, others will offer few and try to compensate in other ways. Vendors will be the first to experience this metamorphosis. They can meet the future needs with trendier offerings and ways to help locations offer affordable, yet quality perks.