Catering to Remote Teams: Innovative Solutions for Virtual Company Gatherings - Zerocater (2024)

During the pandemic, businesses needed to continue operating via remote work. For many companies, remote and hybrid positions have become the new norm since then. In fact, according to the US Census, the percentage of people in the workforce working from home jumped from 5.7% in 2019 to 17.9% in just 2 years.

In the process, many in-person bonding activities have dissipated for employees, leaving some to feel isolated at work. We’re going to go over some ways you can entice employees to get back into the office with food and help facilitate more of that important bonding time between employees.

How Office Catering Benefits Your Business

Food at work is one of the surprisingly effective ways you can help make your staff more productive. When your employees feel taken care of and have something extra to look forward to, it inherently boosts morale and productivity as a result.

You can even improve retention this way. Jobs that offer perks are more likely to attract and retain employees than jobs that don’t. Satisfaction ratings jumped from 56% to 67% when free food was offered at an employee’s place of work. Companies rated highly on compensation and benefits saw 56% lower attrition, meaning you’re creating an environment to prevent less burnout and a better overall outlook on your company.

If you’re struggling to motivate your staff in meaningful ways, especially through remote work, you might be able to bridge the gap with food.

How to Get Office Lunches For Your Remote Employees

There are a limited number of options when it comes to remote or hybrid catering. Let’s take a look at a few and go over which options we think are the best.

Meal Delivery Stipend

This is one of the most popular and easiest methods of offering your remote employees free lunches. Companies will work with a meal delivery app to give their staff a certain amount of credit to buy themselves food. This can be a good option for some companies, but it’s often impersonal and staff will frequently still pay for most of their meal. Especially for smaller companies that might only be able to offer a meal stipend once per week, this method of providing lunches still leaves much to be desired on its own.

Food Allowances

Similar to meal delivery stipends, food allowances can be used in person to purchase food at your company cafeteria instead of through meal delivery apps. This is a great option if you have the space for a company cafeteria.

You can offer staffed catering each day, allowing your employees to come on-site as they wish and use their food allowance as needed. If not done carefully, this can lead to waste, so keep that in mind. 1.3 billion tons of food is wasted per year, and you don’t want to contribute to that number. If you’re worried employees might not come in and get food often enough, it’s best to go with a different option.

Allowances can be limiting as well, we talk more about having a dietary-inclusive menu here. If you don’t regularly have employees coming in due to virtual work, you won’t be able to offer a wide variety of options.

Hybrid Options

Some catering companies are offering hybrid catering options for events and daily use. Zerocater has a hybrid option called “cloud cafe”, allowing your staff to choose the meals they want on the days they come to the office. It’s the perfect blend of both meal delivery stipends and food allowances, and you don’t need a cafeteria to do it either.

The Zerocater app allows staff to choose exactly what they want to eat from the options you provide directly from our app, and you only pay for the food you serve. No need to worry about wasting food or money. Regardless of the company size or budget, we can work with you. We’ll even save your dietary preferences and suggest related catering options in the future with our AI.

Making Virtual Office Catering Easier

If you’re ready to try one of our catering services or you’re curious about what we can do for your specific business, we’d love to get in touch. Head over to the “Get Started” button and tell us about your company size, budget, and anything else you’d like us to know. We offer options for companies of any size with a variety of options to suit you and your staff’s needs. We look forward to hearing from you!