If you've been paying attention to office design of facility management in the last few years, chances are you've thought (and drooled) about some of the things Google does at their various campuses and offices around the world. In terms of design, their offices are seemingly incredible: Just look at the Tel Aviv office or the Dublin office.
One of the things that I feel has been most discussed is Google's policy of placing cafes where staff can get food or drinks no more than 150 feet from employees. Yes you read that correctly, 150 feet.
Gourmet has talked about it. 99u has considered it. Business Insider discusses it here.
I'm currently sitting in my apartment and just measured the distance to my kitchen: 25 feet. And I live in a tiny apartment. 150 feet is not very far, and thats the maximum distance food can be, so chances are that most employees are within 100 feet or so.
99u explains that a key reason for this is to encourage greater creativity and collaboration:
"When I visited the campus in March, my guide explained that no part of the office was more than 150 feet from food—either a restaurant, a large cafeteria, or a micro-kitchen—which encourages employees to snack constantly as they bump into coworkers from different teams within the company. Even if Google workers aren’t constantly generating new ideas, plenty of evidence suggests that they enjoy their work, and that this enjoyment feeds into motivation and eventually greater productivity."
I also think that beyond these grand idea, free food nearby your desk is a pretty awesome perk to have. I mean, as mentioned previously, I'm only 25 feet from my food, but I have to pay for it.
And with Google having some 50,000+ employees to place cafes in the vicinity of, it would seem that they are in need of an incredible number of cafes. I've taken the liberty of showing off some of Google's many cafes as well as a number of others that I think you might enjoy.
Do you have a nice cafe at your office? And is it nearby your workstation?
