Balancing Evening Snack Budgets: How to Address Employee Expectations and Cooperation

Dear All,

Our company/development center is a small one, consisting of 18 developers and 4 non-technical staff members. The company owner operates from the US, and I report directly to him on all HR and administrative issues. We have recently decided to arrange evening snacks for employees who stay late, typically until 8:30 or 9 in the office. Initially, there were 10 employees who used to work late (our office hours are from 9-6). However, since the provision of evening snacks became regular, the number of employees staying late has increased. Consequently, we are now arranging evening snacks for almost 20 employees every day.

Initially, we had an approved budget of 30 Rs X 10 employees = 300 Rs/day. With the increased number of employees, the budget per day has now decreased to 15 Rs. Some employees have been ignoring this change and continue to place orders with the office boy, considering the previous budget of 30 Rs per head. This has been occurring for the past few days. Despite my attempts to personally communicate with them and explain that we cannot exceed our daily budget (which is currently happening every day), I have decided to write an email to the team, with a copy to the management.

I would appreciate your advice on the best approach to ensure the satisfaction of both parties involved.

Thank you.

If you are getting additional productivity and profitability from people staying late (and you have the figures to back up your claims), then I would be approaching your owners first to ask them to increase the budget. If you aren't able to show an increase in productivity/profitability, then share with your team members what it is costing the company to provide the snacks and how, in order to fund it, you need to be able to share with the owners that it is a self-funding program. Something that most organizations don't do a good job of is helping people to think like business owners and understand the big picture in terms of the need to be cash flow positive in order for the business to be sustainable for the long term.

Best wishes, Shelley

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Thank you, Shelly, for your suggestion. I have talked to the management, but they are not ready to increase the budget. In terms of productivity, people staying back late, especially those who have recently started, spend most of their time gossiping and taking cigarette/tea breaks in the late evening. Therefore, productivity hardly matters for them as they are the ones actually creating problems.

However, I have sent an email to all employees explaining that the budget cannot be increased due to the management's decision. Since then, those who are placing orders for more than 30 Rs are adding the excess amount themselves. Surprisingly, those individuals are no longer staying back late.

So, things are settled now. :)