Coffee machines may be the single, most cost-effective perk any employer can offer their employees. What’s more, they can be useful for when you have visitors on-site too. Coffee machines are available to suit all workplace sizes and all employer budgets.
Here, Ian Johnson, Managing Director of Johnsons Vending, explores the surprising benefits of having a coffee machine in the workplace and why you should consider investing in one for your employees.
Most people enjoy coffee
Very few workplace perks appeal to all employees but a decent supply of coffee will please just about everyone. You’ll maximise its appeal if you make sure to offer at least one caffeine-free option. Offering coffee on-site will allow your employees to enjoy a decent brew without having to pay coffee-shop prices. This is likely to be much appreciated.
Having an on-site coffee machine can also be useful when you have visitors around. You’ve invited them to your workplace so you presumably want to make a good impression on them. They probably enjoy a good cup of coffee as much as anybody, so a coffee machine is a clear winner here.
It improves sustainability
At the height of the COVID19 pandemic, coffee shops had to use single-use cups for hygiene reasons. Now they are trying to encourage customers back to reusable cups. In reality, however, making the option available to customers does not mean that it will be used.
Reusable cups have been available for a long time. Even so, coffee shops used vast quantities of disposable cups. What’s more, the majority of these wound up in landfills due to the practical challenges of recycling them.
Offering an in-house coffee machine gives staff an easy way to use their own cups. As a bonus, it means you also control the beans used. If you wish, therefore, you can use fair-trade and/or organic options.
It improves health and safety
If there is no on-site coffee machine, then employees basically have three options. Firstly, they can go without. Secondly, they can go and buy it somewhere else. Thirdly, they can make it with a kettle. All three options have health and safety implications.
Going without coffee can lead to employees struggling to focus. Bringing coffee in from the outside requires them to carry hot liquid for a relatively long distance. It also requires them to navigate the area outside the workplace where you can’t control health and safety. Using a kettle requires them to handle boiling water.
Providing an on-site coffee machine resolves all these issues. It can also eliminate the frustration of long queues to buy or make coffee. Coffee machines tend to be much faster than either going out to buy coffee or making it with a kettle.
It can help employees schedule their day
Making coffee available on-site frees employees from the need to fit their caffeine runs around the rest of their day. Although this may seem like a small saving, it genuinely does add up.
Just having an extra five minutes here and there can make it a whole lot easier for employees to fit in whatever they have to do. What’s more, in the real world, the average coffee run is likely to take longer than 5 minutes. This means that having on-site coffee can be a real help to your busy team.
It makes for better meetings
It’s unlikely to be a surprise that coffee helps to maximise productivity. It may, however, be a surprise that coffee can really improve the quality of your workplace meetings. Not only does it help people to focus, but it also helps them to relax. This can help to improve both collaboration and creativity.
On a more basic note, having coffee easily available on-site can help to get people to meetings in good time. They won’t have to rush off to try to buy coffee before the meeting starts or get held up in a queue for the kettle.
