The Corporate Cafeteria Is Broken. So How to Feed Workers?
公司食堂行不通了,该怎样解决员工用餐呢?
Even as the sprawling dining halls of old struggle with emptier workplaces, food is still important to employees, particularly the young.
办公楼越来越空,曾经杂乱的大食堂勉强撑持,但餐食对员工,尤其是年轻人而言,依然很重要。
Many companies are reinventing the company meal.
许多公司正在重新设计公司餐食。
The corporate cafeteria can be an especially lonely place these days.
这段时间,公司食堂可能是一个格外冷清的地方。
"You used to walk in at 12 o'clock on a Tuesday and stand in line to get something," said Casey Allen, 46, who works for a division of the agricultural chemical company BASF in Raleigh, N.C. "Now, you walk in and you're usually first in line."
"以前你在周二中午12点走进食堂,要排队才能取餐,"46岁的凯西·艾伦说,她在北卡罗来纳州罗利市的农业化学品公司BASF的一个部门工作。"现在你走进食堂,一般是第一个排队的。"
A paternalistic fixture of white-collar life born of the Industrial Revolution, the office dining room survived the midcentury move to sprawling suburban office parks.
公司食堂于工业革命时期诞生,是白领生活中的家长主义固定设施,二十世纪中叶公司搬往不断扩张的城郊办公园区,公司食堂被保留下来。
It weathered the rise and fall of cubicle culture and power lunches, and more recently, the lavish excess of the Silicon Valley office lunch.
随后它经受住了格子间文化和商业午餐会的兴衰,以及最近硅谷豪华丰盛的工作午餐的考验。
But as the American office emerges from its pandemic slumber, can the cafeteria survive layoffs, a workweek that sometimes requires only a few days in the mother ship and a new, more demanding generation of employees?
但是,随着美国办公室从大流行的沉睡中走出来,食堂还能挺过裁员、有时只需坐班几天的工作周,以及更为挑剔的新一代员工吗?
Even at companies like Meta, which this month announced that it would lay off 126 cafeteria employees at its headquarters in Menlo Park, Calif., workers are skipping free meals in a quest to leave the office as soon as possible.
即使是在像Meta这样的公司,员工们为了尽早下班,也都放弃了免费餐食。Meta在本月宣布,将在加州门洛帕克市总部裁减126名食堂员工。
"The world of the traditional big cafeteria is dead," said Fedele Bauccio, who in 1987 co-founded Bon Appétit Management Company, which runs food service at hundreds of museums, universities and companies like LinkedIn. "They are just too expensive to maintain, and not flexible enough."
"传统大食堂的世界已经死去了。"费德勒·鲍西奥说。他在1987年与人共同创立了"好胃口"管理公司,为数百家博物馆、大学和领英等公司提供餐饮服务。"食堂的维护成本太高,而且不够灵活。"
Still, office workers need to eat. So companies are blowing up the cafeteria.
尽管如此,上班族还是需要吃饭。于是公司开始吹嘘食堂。
Long regarded as a way to encourage productivity, cafeterias are being reframed as respite and recreation, designed to attract younger workers in a job market badly in need of them.
长期以来,食堂一直被认为是提高工作效率的一种方式,现在却被改造成了一种休息和娱乐方式,目的是吸引就业市场急需的年轻员工。
Some companies are installing cocktail bars, or hosting sunset oyster-shucking parties to help employees relax and socialize after work.
一些公司在布置鸡尾酒吧,或者举办落日牡蛎派对,以帮助员工在下班后放松和社交。
The large dining halls at tech giants are being divided into smaller, more homey spaces flexible enough to feed a work force whose size changes drastically day to day.
科技巨头的大型餐厅被分成了更小、更温馨的空间,足够灵活地为规模每天都不断变化的员工提供餐食。
Developers are building restaurants that function like subsidized corporate cafeterias but are open to the public. "Free pizza isn't enough anymore," said Andrew Montesano, the North America food programming and operations manager at LinkedIn.
房地产开发商正在建造一种餐厅,这种餐厅功能类似于有补贴的公司食堂,但对公众开放。"免费披萨已经不够吸引人了。"领英北美餐饮运营经理安德鲁·蒙泰萨诺说。
Employees, especially younger ones, are demanding more culturally authentic meals and climate-friendly kitchen protocols, like reducing waste, according to Mr. Bauccio and others in the corporate food service business.
鲍西奥和其他企业餐饮服务行业从业人员表示,员工,尤其是年轻员工,要求更正宗的食物和气候友好型厨房规程,比如减少浪费。
They are eating less meat and questioning labor practices. Health and wellness have become a menu mantra.
他们更少吃肉,并对劳工问题提出质疑。健康已经成为菜单宗旨。