When your fledgling firm is finding its feet in NYC, providing office coffee is probably the last thing on your to-do list. There are so many things to balance, and usually in a freshly minted company there are never enough people to get all those things done.
However, our team of caffeine fiends at Corporate Essentials has put together this quick list we affectionately know as The Four Cs – the top reasons great office coffee is excellent fuel for successful startups. Take ten minutes, grab a cup of your favorite warm, relaxing beverage and take a scroll through some of the reasons that NYC’s startups love office coffee.
Catering for creativity
It is difficult to deny the creative pull that the coffee house down the road has when you need a change of pace for an afternoon work session. There is some evidence that suggests the ambient sounds of a café provide the ideal level of background noise for creative work.
There is also a solid correlation between creative, design-driven personalities and a love for precisely crafted, gorgeous espresso beverages. A great way to bring that creative power into your workplace is by providing exceptional office coffee equipment and products.
By bringing a beautiful espresso brewer into your break room, you give your creative team members a great outlet for their artistic energy – and also provide a unique perk for all the staff on site.
Giving teams a functional space to stretch, refresh and think things through encourages their creative juices to flow more freely – and the best problem solvers need to be able to take a creative approach to provide those innovative solutions that are the heart and soul of startup businesses.
Clear communication
Providing a space that is not task based for teams to come together is a tremendous way to encourage open discussions across an organization. The notion of a “flat” business culture is very attractive, and great office coffee in your NYC break room can go a long way to establishing a collaborative culture by providing a direct line of communication between everyone – regardless of their position in the firm or their team affiliation.
An additional communications perk that office coffee brings your New York City business is the opportunity to engage your team members in an ongoing conversation about their satisfaction.
You begin this process by designing a regular survey of all staff, asking simple questions about the office coffee setup and inviting opinions for new options. Then, you increase the interaction of your survey by including additional questions about the break room itself and solicit other improvements that might benefit the office coffee culture.
By involving your colleagues across the company in the choices made in the break room, where great food and drinks are shared, you are providing a two-way avenue for discussion about something that really matters. Coffee is serious business, after all.
Company-wide collaboration
The boost that great office communication brings is truly vital to the success of a startup business, because communication is the key to a great collaborative atmosphere. Office coffee is a great opportunity to get people from across your company together for a non-work purpose – refreshment.
By encouraging the people who make up your teams, however small, to take time away from their desks to grab a cup of great office coffee, you give them a reason to talk about something other than that huge venture capital pitch you are working on for Thursday’s meeting.
The real magic happens when people who might not otherwise have to work together get the opportunity to exchange ideas and brainstorm. These conversations often start out as discussions about office coffee products, but eventually yield to productive cross-departmental talks on real issues and can provide unique solutions to problems that might otherwise be difficult to resolve.
Creating calm
One of the most important benefits that great office coffee can bring your NYC startup is a little touch of Zen. The calming effect that a warm cup of tea or coffee can have on frayed nerves and percolating tempers is hard to disregard. There are those who would argue that coffee is packed with caffeine and thus, a stimulant and that there is no way a stimulant can provide a calming effect.
If you are a member of that camp, we would like to respectfully disagree and ask: have you ever worked with someone who just could not get themselves together in the morning without a cup of fresh, hot coffee? If not, consider yourself fortunate – but we are more than willing to bet you know those folks, if you are not one of them yourself.
And the truth is, the ritual of preparing even a simple single-serve cup of coffee from a pod is something that can help even the grumpiest person unclench their jaw for a few fleeting minutes. Additionally, by providing a space where staff can step away from their work, you encourage them to take breaks.
Evidence collected by healthcare organizations shows that workers who take frequent breaks are less prone to develop stress-related illnesses, more capable of retaining focus on key tasks, less likely to take sick days and more healthy overall.
When you are ready to put our “four Cs” to work for your NYC start up, call on the office coffee gurus at Corporate Essentials. We have close to twenty years experience putting the best office coffee into businesses of all shapes and sizes – businesses like yours.
Our team is poised to help you maximize the return on your office coffee investment by taking the burden of providing the equipment and supplies your break room needs off your shoulders, freeing you up to get back to keeping all those balls you juggle from day to day flying through the air.
