Food & Transport Reimbursement Policy - for employees working beyond their regular working hours

pourna-s
We are an IT company and want to introduce the Food Reimbursement policy for employees who are working beyond their regular working hours at night. We also want to initiate a policy for local Transport reimbursement.
I want to know whether others in the industry have adopted such policies?
Thiyagua
This is well known practice in most of the IT companies. It's up to the companies how they manage.
In my ex-company, employees used to be provided with evening snacks (with an upper limit per day per employee) and this was taken care of by the admin department. The house keeping staff would come and take orders from the employees on what they want and they placed an order in the cafeteria accordingly. This monthly expenses would be borne by the company so no need for employees to claim in this scenario.
The other practice is that employees can order on their own and claim the expense later with bills.
Same for transport.
kamesh333
It's better to fix an upper limit and reimburse instead of arranging. You should have a detailed note on eligibility criteria for snacks.
As far as the transport is concerned, I suggest fixing the timings and instructing the Admin/ security to organise (for example, if the office hours end by 6 PM, then organise a vehicle at 8 PM and one more at 10.30 PM (those employees who continue till 8 PM are eligible for snacks and 10.00 PM can have dinner and leave by 10.30 PM- failing which every employee goes on his own. Then the financial implications may be high and if it is beyond 10.30 PM, then it is HOD to approve & clear.
EnrichExports
In order to frame a Food reimbursement policy, you need to answers for the following questions-
1. Whether the Overtime work is to be performed by individual staff members or entire teams?
--- if the overtime work involves team, then leave it to the concerned Department Head to approve all those expenses. Department Heads will try to justify those expenses in a meaningful way and try to avoid too much expenses spent on food & refreshment on a normal assignment.
2. What is the frequency of such overtime work and how long will it be there beyond your regular working hours ?
--- if it is very rare, its better to ask staffs to have dinner / refreshment and get it reimbursed with the approval of their HOD. You need to decide whether bills needs to be submitted.
--- if OT is very often, as per the business needs, Admin / HR shall get the requirement of the workforce and made it available in the pantry.
3. Since you belong to IT Sector - most of you could have the option of "Work From Home". Then why do you require your staff to stay at office for overtime work ?
Coming to the Local Transport reimbursement policy, try to spare an available cab (if you provide one for regular work hours) to pickup the workforce and to drop them in a common area where they can easily access their own mode of travel, which shall be reimbursed by them.
pourna-s
Thanks for your response .
In industry, what is usually the upper limit provided to employees for Food (Dinner) & Transport Reimbursement?
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