Regular readers and followers of my social media accounts will know that I like a coffee.
It isn’t just the taste and revitalising powers of caffeine that do it for me, but the whole culture that has grown around coffee and coffee shops in recent years particularly in reference to business. When I started as a recruiter, if you wanted to interview someone offsite then you had to head to a smoky pub, or greasy spoon cafe, hardly the ideal location to discuss someone’s aspirations and career plans.
The role of coffee in the workplace has grown too. Moving from the jar of instant and a kettle, to the ‘proper coffee’ machine, there’s an expectation that people do their best work with a decent coffee, have great ideas in a break out area over a few cappuccinos, or just connect and share thoughts and experiences with a latte. It can help people switch off, get creative and engage.
So I was interested to see some research from Nespresso and Comres about coffee in the workplace. I’ve seen other studies that show the importance of valuing people in the workplace, and decent coffee would seem to be a small perk that people like.
I’ll write more about the research another time, but for now I’ll share this infographic. I wasn’t surprised to see coffee rank as a higher perk than fresh fruit, but free drinks on a Friday?? Times have changed!
And neither was the recruiter in me surprised by the fact that 11% would reject an offer based on the coffee served. I’ve taken feedback from many candidates over the years who have been turned off a company by their first interview experience – and hospitality is often one of the key indicators of attention to detail.
And 44% of HR people have a creative idea on a coffee break…almost as many as the creative and comms industries!
(Disclaimer : Eagle eyed readers will be aware that I joined a number of other bloggers, journalists and marketing people at a recent Nespresso event to launch a new coffee in their range. The research that I’m referencing here wasn’t connected with that evening. It’s something that I’ve been talking to them about over a few months, alongside some other work that I’ve been doing on workplace happiness)
Talent Trends & Insights 
Whilst I don’t like coffee; I get this. It’s the stuff you can see – the top layer of culture as described by Ed Schein.
Blowing off an old memory; I worked somewhere that was brought to it’s knees financially and we had to make drastic cuts. Removing the subsidised canteen and free vending caused the most bad feeling – people got that costs had to be cut, but mess around with their food and drink …….!
What grabbed me particularly from this data is the 70% who find out more from informal chat. Perhaps formal meetings (apart from regulatory requirements) could be replaced by cafe chats.