Employers are offering free vegan meals and fish and chips lunches in bid to lure workers back to the office – as M&G boss orders staff back in three days a week as ‘the City’s too empty on Fridays’
- The Big Four accounting firm said the freebie wasn’t what coaxed people back
- Ipsos: ‘Commuting costs and paying for lunch are barriers to working in office’
Employers are offering free vegan meals and fish and chip Fridays to try and tempt workers back to the office.
It comes after a survey by Ipsos found working three days a week in the office was the ‘right balance’ with many enjoying the hybrid set-up.
But workers are being offered ‘perks’ including lunchtime meals and networking opportunities in a bid to try and coax people back after the pandemic forced employees to be rooted to their desks at home.
Big Four accounting firm KPMG – which employs 14,000 people in the UK – said it gave the freebie to workers including offers of vegan meals and the British staple ‘fish and chip Fridays’.
It comes amid a push to get people back to offices, with chief executive of London-based global investment manager M&G, Andrea Rossi revealing he had ordered staff back to the office for at least three days a week because ‘the City’s too empty on Fridays’.
Big Four accounting firm KPMG offered employees free vegan meals on Mondays and free fish and chips on Fridays in a move to tempt workers back to the office (stock image)
A recent survey by Ipsos has found the time it takes to get to and from work and having to fork out for lunch were stopping people from going back to the office
‘We tried some things early on, which I think the Ipsos report talks about, in terms of perks,’ she told Michal Hussain.
‘We tried free vegan meals on Mondays and fish and chips on Fridays. I wouldn’t say that was thing that drew them back.
READ MORE: Civil servants face curb on working from home ‘Tuesday to Thursday’ as ministers draw up plans to tackle plummeting public sector productivity
‘What we are finding is the biggest thing that draws people back is the opportunities to work with people that they know, to network, to have those interactions that you just can’t get in the same way when you are working remotely on Teams or Zoom.’
Meanwhile, KPMG chief people officer Lisa Fernihough told BBC Radio 4 Today this morning the offer of free food wasn’t what tempted workers back.
In 2021, KPMG told its 18,000 UK workforce they will work in the office for up to four days in a fortnight under a hybrid working model drawn up following the decline in British Covid cases.
Ms Fernihough said its guidance of working two to three days in the office currently offers the best mix.
‘So far that is our experience, I think the other comment is we are still in a test and learn,’ she said.
‘We’ve come out of the pandemic we are working in this way. Who knows where we are going to be in five or ten years in terms of how this works. For now absolutely this is working well.’
Mr Rossi told The Times he likes to be in the office. ‘I get a bit frustrated when I come in on a Friday because the whole City, it’s empty, he said.
‘M&G has an enormous opportunity to sustainably grow this business in the coming years, even in the coming months, and it’s important to get more people together.’
Ipsos’ survey found the time it takes to get to and from work and having to fork out for lunch were stopping people from going back to the office.
The chief executive of M&G, Andrea Rossi, has ordered his managers back to the office three days a week and said the ‘whole City is empty’ on Fridays
Ghassan Karian, chief executive of Ipsos Karian and Box, told The Telegraph: ‘In the responses to our survey, three days in the office came out as the optimum solution.
‘It strikes the right balance that realises the benefits of office working for both employer and employee, while also giving individuals the ability to think, work and manage their home lives in a flexible way.’
READ MORE: Come into the office or risk losing your bonus: Bank workers given ultimatum if they don’t show up to office for at least three days a week
Last week, a survey by Ambl found 40% of Brits who work from home say not being in the office all week has made them fundamentally unspontaneous and boring – more likely to reject night out plans then agree to them.
The research, which looked at 2,000 working adults, found that 30 per cent believe Covid took all the spark from their lives and that still has not returned.
While civil servants face a ‘working from home’ crackdown under plans being drawn up by ministers.
Downing Street is poised to issue new guidance to all Whitehall departments in a bid to end the culture of ‘Tuesday to Thursday’ working which has developed since the pandemic.
The new push will be led by Paymaster General Jeremy Quin to tackle plummeting public sector productivity, it has been reported.
Meanwhile, hundreds of council staff are ‘working from the beach’ – with a ten-fold increase in the number allowed to log in from abroad.
Town hall bosses have granted more than 1,350 requests to work from overseas over the past three years, figures show.
The number jumped from 73 approvals in 2020/21, the year the Covid-19 pandemic was at its height, to 440 in 2021/22.
In August, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said company workers who defy his directive to return to the office for a minimum of three days a week may be best placed to leave the company altogether.
During a ‘fishbowl’ meeting, he expressed frustration over employees not taking his return-to-office policy seriously and told those refusing to come in for the three-day minimum: ‘It’s probably not going to work out for you.’
Zoom recently recently ordered its staff back to the office and said those who live within a 50-mile radius of an office should work in person at least twice a week.
The company has a workforce of between 5,000 and 10,000, according to its LinkedIn page, with around 200 working in its new UK office in London.
A spokesperson for the firm said: ‘We believe that a structured hybrid approach – meaning a set number of days employees that live near an office need to be on site – is most effective for Zoom.
‘As a company, we are in a better position to use our own technologies, continue to innovate, and support our global customers.’
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