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If nutrition & eating are central to good health (and mental acuity), then the TUC's finding that one in six workers are skipping meals because they cannot afford the food, is not just a health issue (which may be contributing to the UK continued health crisis), but also could be (yet one more) factor underlying the productivity puzzle...
Incremental productivity gains often come from the shopfloor, but hungry workers seem less likely to innovate!
@ChrisMayLA6
Most have likely had #COVID19 at least once as well. Brain fog and tiredness are well documented.
@ChrisMayLA6 Nothing new under the sun. Sweden had this problem in the 70s, I think the politicians discovered that workers ate too badly or not at all. So they launched "Rikskuponger" which where a coupon system you could buy food for, but nothing else. It was also not a taxable benefit.
I don't if it alone solved the problem, but I do remember them from my youth. Everyones, parents used to get them at work, and give them to their children from time to time to buy a meal at a restaurant.
Yes, the UK had the same problem at the end of the C19th & in the 1930s, and during the 70s too.... its a recurrent issue, unsurprisingly
@ChrisMayLA6 The older I get, the less new issues there seem to exist. ;)
Yup, me too.... if you look back to the English Civil War & the proliferation of political pamphleting, its notable how many political issues we have to day are being dealt with in parallel forms then in C17th
@ChrisMayLA6 This is very interesting! Do you have any links? Would be fun to have a look and see what could be learned from back then, on how to deal with todays problems! =)
Another dark and sinister aspect of getting older, and seeing the same things popping up again and again is... where's all the entertainment going to come from??
@ChrisMayLA6 and we know from the Finnish studies that starving the young adults has long term health effects on their offspring if conceived during period a restriction (or proceeding 3 months or so) Restricted diet in mother to be was specifically avoiding during Rationing periods in UK for that reason.
@ChrisMayLA6 I remember visiting the Google campus in the early 00s and marveling at the free food … which is something I gather they've cut right back on in the past couple of years. Yet another indicator to add to the list of "corporate death spiral" signs …?
a canary in the cafe?
@ChrisMayLA6 Cutting the catering is like union-busting and going after whistleblowers: short-term justifiable b/c it makes the bottom line go up, but in the long term it's burning the seed corn.
A lot of large sites with cafes and canteens moved from it being a joint benefit of cheap food and stopping people going off-site for longer and drinking in pubs, to a profit centre that was outsourced to the usual suspects who lowered quality and staff wages.
#FBPE @TonyJWells @cstross @ChrisMayLA6 Many years ago now Bath University canteen had culture issues training new staff.
New staff who'd previously worked in commercial operations were used to minimising the size of portions to the extent they could get away with. They had to be taught "we're here to feed the students, not to make as much profit as possible: give them as much as they want."
I wonder whether they are able to retain that attitude these days.
@TimWardCam @TonyJWells @cstross @ChrisMayLA6 I once worked for an organisation with a canteen, where if you felt you didn’t have a full portion you could complain and they’d weigh it. You might get extra to make the full portion size, but if your meal was over, they’d scrape the surplus into the bin. A publicly funded outfit.
@TimWardCam @TonyJWells @cstross
If the cost pressures were the same as my old institution, then I'd say they'd be back to minimising portions.... at my university they also squeezed out the only independent contractor offering breakfast (so they could monopolise provision & raise prices)