There are many opportunities for colleagues to eat together – holiday parties, team lunches and quiet get-togethers in restaurant booths with trusted colleagues – to name a few.
Scientific research indicates that eating together does great things for our mental wellbeing and performance, and design and work policies can support joint meals throughout the year.
Eating at our individual desks provides us the calories we need to persevere through our work day (actually, sometimes too many calories for that, a topic for a different article) but not the informal interactions with colleagues that build interpersonal bonds, increase morale, and generally satisfy our need as a social species to talk to others when we want or need to do so that come from eating together. Shared eating areas can be particularly important spaces for employees to get to know each other, which can be important as management practices evolve.
Eating away from our desks in shared dining areas, for example cafeterias, boosts the welfare of both the people eating and the organizations that employ them.
Researchers have determined that the performance of work groups is better when teammates eat meals together.
Research has also identified reasons for people to share dishes. Scientists have found that when people share a plate at a business meeting/meal session, perhaps because they are jointly eating an appetizer, they do a better job collaborating and even negotiate deals more quickly. People eating similar foods also trust each other more.
Lunchtime practices send oodles of messages to current and potential employees – and clients – about what an organization values, which is another reason to invest in “eating centers” if their presence aligns with company culture. Another important signal is sent by the healthfulness, creativity, etc., of any food that is provided in those spaces for people to dine together. So is having a single dining area where everyone, regardless of position, eats together, or choosing to establish an executive (or other group specific) eating zone. Locations of eating areas, as with so many things in life, also matter.
Designing spaces into workplaces where people can eat together, and developing organizational policies that support group dining, are likely to pay off, for both individuals and employers, year round.
Sally Augustin, PhD, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com). Research Design Connections reports on research conducted by social and physical scientists that designers can apply in practice. Insights derived from recent studies are integrated with classic, still relevant findings in concise, powerful articles. Topics covered range from the cognitive, emotional, and physiological implications of sensory and other physical experiences to the alignment of culture, personality, and design, among others. Information, in everyday language, is shared in a monthly subscription newsletter, an archive of thousands of published articles, and a free daily blog. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.