A cake full of cream and fries or a balanced dish accompanied by a fruit? What happens if employee food choices said something about their morals?
“I have a client who tries to predict the mood of his teams thanks to the meals of the canteen,” says Sandrine Evangelista consultant, who accompanies SME leaders to develop their growth.
It was she who suggested the idea to this commercial manager, who wants to remain anonymous. “It must be careful, it is not absolutely a way of spying and even less judging employees, the data are obviously anonymized,” he explains.
“The idea is to try as much as possible to predict problems in advance.” According to her, companies lack indicators to evaluate the morals of their employees. “Now the smallest of growth is employees, how to know if they are still motivated, if they face a loss of meaning?”
Do not wait to reach red
Of course, there are tools: there are annual interviews, but as the name implies, they only intervene once a year. Managers can also trust the feelings of managers or satisfaction surveys made with employees.
Finally, companies can analyze the absent trial rate or even the industrial court. “But, when we are there, it is really too late, you don’t have to get to the conflict or illness license to try to solve the problems!” Supplied evangelist Sandrine.
Therefore, companies often look for “weak signals” or “anticipatory factors.” Therefore, the assumption of this consultant is simple: “If the consumption of sweet or fatty foods increases, it can be a sign of a fall in the moral of employees and a social climate at medium mast,” explains Sandrine Evangelist.
A study by researchers in Psychology at the University of Kansas, and published in Revue Medical Hypothesis, for example, showed that winter depression was associated with “an irresistible taste for sugar.” Even so, according to this study, this mental state “pushes carbohydrates” because “they have an immediate effect of the elevation of mood” even if they can “reduce well -being.”
Cream and absenteeism, hamburgers and team atmosphere … looking for correlations
In their experimentation, Sandrine Evangelista and the business manager decided to observe the recurrences between the meals chosen in the canteen by the 300 employees and several indicators.
They are observing the correlations with absenteeism, with the climate (which, because of having it, has an impact on morality), with the social climate perceived by the magaurs in qualitative reports, with the results of the satisfaction survey completed by the employees, the atmosphere in the equipment …
With a prevention objective, these analyzes should make it possible to “detect difficult periods”, “identify suffering services” and “implement specific actions”. According to Sandrine Evangelista, the idea was very well received by employees and their representatives.
“Obviously, this type of experience could not be carried out everywhere, he recognizes the consultant. But this is possible because there is confidence between employees and the manager.”
Source: BFM TV
