Check out your office fridge. From bad food lurking in its depths to outright lunch theft, there’s always drama. Here’s how those scenes might play out—plus tips on helping your office refrigerator stay fresh, safe, and drama free.
Have a strict policy where all leftover food—including its container—is tossed at a specific day and time, whether weekly or monthly. Clearly post the policy on the fridge door and in employee announcements. One person can be in charge of tossing items each time, or employees can rotate.
Keep labels and markers handy so it’s easy to mark items with a name and date.
Scene 3: Someone’s hogging the spotlight—they’re using a lot of fridge space for their lunch, snacks, condiments, and more.
Here’s where human resources or an office manager should send out a companywide email or post a note on the refrigerator or in a common area. Suggested wording: Our office fridge has been getting a lot of use lately, which is great! However, to make sure everyone has enough space to store their lunches, we kindly ask that everyone keeps large items, personal coolers, and bulk grocery items at home. As a quick reminder, it helps to use standard, space-saving containers and to remove personal food items at the end of each week. Thanks for your help in keeping our breakroom accommodating for everyone!
This is a clear HR issue, especially if the theft is being done maliciously.
As a reminder, there’s another way these scenes could play out: You could avoid the office fridge altogether. Just store your lunch at your workspace—you can use a container with an ice pack to keep it fresh.
It’s not called the Happiest Place on Earth for no reason.
The Disney approach to employee engagement focuses on four pillars: selection, training, communication, and care. You can put them into action at your company with these five steps:
Start with hiring. Skills can usually be taught, so prioritize attitude and cultural fit first.
Train with purpose. Once hired, train employees on your company’s common purpose and key standards first, then teach technical skills. For example, Disney’s purpose is “to create happiness,” and its key values are safety, courtesy, inclusion, show, and efficiency.
Empower. As much as you can, give employees authority to make decisions to enhance the customer experience without needing managerial approval.
Eliminate “TNMJ.” Encourage employees to step up to improve customer satisfaction and eliminate “That’s not my job” thinking.
Care. Create systems for employees to recognize co-workers, for customers and managers to recognize staff members, and to support employees in personal milestones. In short, create systems to create happy moments.•