We’ve recently been engaging with caterers, consultant peers, foodservice suppliers and workplace client organisations and have been repeatedly asked to provide a forecast of what foodservice in the workplace will look like moving forward.
We believe we will further see continued ‘Maslow Effect’ and have accordingly applied the thoughts of Abraham Maslow to foodservice in the workplace, and the specific ‘needs’ challenges employers face.
Abraham Maslow
Maslow, wrote a paper in 1943, A Theory of Human Motivation. The psychologist developed the ‘Hierarchy of Needs’ proposing healthy humans have certain needs which are arranged in a hierarchy or a five-tier pyramid.
Level 1 | Physiological needs
Level 2 | Safety needs
Level 3 | Belongingness needs
Level 4 | Esteem needs
Level 5 | Self-Actualization needs
Hierarchy of Needs
- Maslow says we are all motivated by our own personal hierarchy of needs. We must satisfy certain needs, each in turn, before we move up the hierarchy to address needs further up.
- At a primary level, we deal with our PHYSIOLOGICAL Needs.
Cast your mind back to March 2020. Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, addressed the nation on coronavirus, speaking of “the devastating impact of this invisible killer”. He gave us all one very simple instruction “you must stay at home”.
This is the point where we all (irrespective of age, background, ethnicity, experience or geography) – like snakes in a game of “snakes and ladders” – went right back to the basic need to survive. Remember going to the supermarket? We were all panic-buying to provide basic household items to survive – food, water, loo rolls and other essentials.
- At a secondary level, we deal with our SAFETY Needs.
The UK government said we could go “shopping for basic necessities”, “taking one form of exercise a day” and receive “medical help”. This is the point where our SAFETY needs at home (esp. health and wellbeing) became the focus.
Key measures to assist businesses and employees through COVID-19, included the Job Retention “Furlough” Scheme, were created to support our personal security, employment and property needs.
- Last week, Boris Johnson urged companies in England to return to workplaces. This is the point where addressing SAFETY needs transferred from individuals to the responsibility of workplaces; employers becoming responsible for communicating with employees to reassure them of the SAFETY measures being, as good as, if not better, than in our own homes. However, according to US bank Morgan Stanley’s research unit AlphaWise, this time last week, Wednesday 5th August, only one-third (34%) of UK white-collar employees had reportedly gone back to work.
- This suggests further reassurances are needed from workplace employers to: (1) address or communicate SAFETY PROVISIONS at work but also (2) promote BELONGINESS PROVISIONS.
Power of Community and Belonging
- When dealing with tragedy, conflict or loss, we tend to draw on our own personal, spiritual and cultural experiences, as our coping mechanisms to make sense of traumatic events and deal with them. The ability to bounce back and develop resilience, after a tragedy, lies less in the individual and more in the power of positivity of an individual’s influencing communities. If left to the individual, an inadequate coping mechanism may lead to mental health problems (depression, substance misuse, post-traumatic stress disorder).
- A community – be it family or workplace – is a group, team, or organization where there are high levels of trust, communication, equality, respect and collaboration. It’s not without conflict, but members have the potential to nurture resilience, acceptance, and an amazing supporting infrastructure, directing efforts to focus on positive outcomes and a vision of the future that can be created collaboratively. M. Scott Peck defines community as: “a way of being together with both individual authenticity and interpersonal harmony so that people become able to function with a collective energy even greater than the sum of their individual energies.”
- Through a community, communication leads to belonging and individuals develop a more positive and hopeful outlook. Hope is vital for recovery. Hope fuels energy and investment in rebuilding lives, restoring dreams and creating positive legacies (allowing individuals to feel safe, trust in their future and help facilitate the feeling of security returning back to their lives).
- Why is this important TODAY? Over 66 million of us have had to deal with tragedy, conflict, personal loss, self-isolation (to contain the virus) and been forced to draw on personal, spiritual and cultural experiences, as our coping mechanisms to make sense of the pandemic.
- Isolation is known to create hopelessness, and with a feeling of powerlessness apathy is taking its toll on morale, productivity and engagement. This is why creating a send of community creates belonging. And belonging can motivate members to elevate their performance and dedication to what they care about most, which is why creating a community NOW is important.
- We can’t deal with the complexities we’re facing today alone which is why it’s our employers who will be in a better position to take back control and help us to create a new future. And we do this by collaborating with others to tackle complex agendas, one conversation at a time.
- Top-down decision-making will be a challenge in creating sustainable change. Involvement at all levels of an organization will be critical for innovation, sustaining and restoring the UK economy.
- When you’re in a community, you’re committed and responsible for the outcomes; you’ll participate in organizational and community decision-making and planning, regain power and energy and facilitate positive change.
- Maslow’s thoughts, therefore, are as valid today and important to understand in terms of human motivation and addressing workplace environments.
- Whilst we’re not prepared to go the whole hog and be specific, we believe the areas traditionally dedicated to foodservices, more so now than ever, post COVID-19, may have to do more than just a feed a nation returning to work to improve employee wellbeing; they may provide big comfortable “Central Perk-Style Sofas, to give sitters a great big hug, or “Sleeping Chambers” to recharge, recover and restore nappers or oversized “Games Areas”, designed to bring communities together, once more.
This is why we believe the workplace, post COVID-19 will be best positioned and more responsible in restore us, as employees, and the UK economy by addressing our: SAFETY NEEDS & BELONGINGNESS NEEDS.
3 Steps To Build Community at Work
As an employer, facilities manager, personnel manager, chief executive officer, are you willing to create a community that is distinct from the past? If so, it’s more important now than ever, to look at reconditioning shared agile space, perhaps inviting your employees to reconsider the possible future that might be co-create in your staff restaurant, hospitality and foodservice areas?
Here are three steps to creating community that will generate high involvement and participation:
- Gather employees who have expertise and give them a role in tackling the problem. This increases commitment. People are more committed to something they belong to.
- Encourage diverse perspectives. None of us is as smart as all of us. Invite employees and catering providers to share how they see the world and the best practice demonstrate in it.
- Follow the community energy. See what emerges in conversation and what needs to be discussed and addressed. Talk about the things that matter the most to the people who matter the most to your business.
We believe “The Maslow Effect” will help employers apply the hierarchy of needs to best understand WHY? Their employees will be happy to return to the workplace. If both SAFETY and BELONGINGNESS needs are met, a new normal could happen quickly.
In fact, I challenge UK facilities managers, personnel managers, leaders and CEO’s to use their staff restaurants and foodservice areas to “restore” their employees, companies and the UK economy.
Article by: Tracey Fairclough
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Workplace Foodservice Covid 19 – 16 August 2020 – Workplace Foodservice Covid 19