Times are changing when it comes to office amenities. Gone are the days where an old pot of coffee and a water cooler are enough to keep folks happy, and certainly not to attract talent. The Facebooks and Googles of the world led the way, now most young companies are expected to offer some form of food and beverage perks.
We all know the old adage of “office coffee sucks”. And to be fair, it often does. The thing about coffee is, it’s not just one thing that makes it good or bad, it’s usually a combination of several factors. You could have the freshest best beans from the coolest shop in town, but if whoever is making the brew over loads the filter and you get under-extracted brew in your cup with a side of grounds, you’re still going to hear “this coffee sucks”.
Not to say delicious drip coffee isn’t possible in an office setting, it certainly is. But it takes several people, day after day, carefully looking after that product from the time it leaves the roastery, to being brewed on Monday morning. We would love to be the company to help with this, but for this very reason we developed our nitro cold brew program.
The kegs are great way to bring cafe quality coffee to the office. Of course they will have a higher price per cup than traditional drip coffee, but that premium has added benefits beyond not having to hear David rant about how much better the coffee he makes at home is.
Offering high quality food and beverages helps create a place where people want to be. If you can turn 30 people a week coming straight to the office rather stumbling in 15 minutes late because of a morning Starbucks run, or turn the afternoon coffee run into the afternoon coffee meetup in the conference room with glasses of cold brew in tow, you can generate real man-hours that can make a difference on the year’s bottom line.
This is also a way to show folks that you care about them. Showing indifference and shoving the cheapest pre-ground coffee in someones face is not how you say ‘thanks for coming in today and doing what you do’. It also doesn’t exactly beg them to stick around.
It certainly doesn’t hurt when looking for talent either. It's getting tougher and tougher to find top tier people these days, and being able to walk an applicant through your beautiful space and hand them a cascading cup of nitro cold brew is not going to hurt your chance of bringing in that developer you’ve been chasing.
And it’s just plain good. The office can be a stressful, anxiety inducing place. Having a little oasis in the corner of the kitchen to pour yourself a glass of ‘I can do this’ is sometimes exactly what people need. So grab a cold brew, you’ve earned it (and you have a ton of shit to do this afternoon). Godspeed.
Tiny House