In part I'm paying 40% in tax so if I'm going to buy coffees it's actually more effective to have them provided by the company. But in general, that sort of convenience and benefit is often worth more than the monetary value.
Tea/coffee in the office is very different to a expensive social events, but it's all on a spectrum, and I value some of those things more than the money. I do however earn a good salary, this could well be different for many others.
That companies have then reframed it as an "employee perk" is a very slick PR move.
I was thinking of it more as the human right to a cup of tea (not meaning to belittle real human rights struggles)
I actually started of my working career as a factory worker (nightshift, 12 hour shifts, seven days a week). It was customary to bring along a flask of coffee and a packed lunch.
Right now, even though we have company-provided coffee, I'd rather they just give me the money to bring a flask of my own coffee.
It's more convenient, I get to make a trade-off between quality and cost as the situation calls for it, I get to switch coffees if I need to.
In current reality, though, you are correct - overall it's cheaper for the company to provide coffee instead of giving you the marginal cost of the coffee you consume. I just wanted to provide an alternative viewpoint.
I just think that saying "just give me the money" in all cases is a) not necessarily efficient, and b) glosses over the idea that a benefit can be worth more to people than the monetary value.
It can also be worth more to the employer! The UK government don't provide tea/coffee typically because it all ends up on public record and there's a perception that the media will be outraged if the government spent £10k on tea bags, even if that might be a perfectly reasonable expense across tens of thousands of employees (made up numbers, not important). The result is that in some offices you get contractors being paid £800 a day taking a 15 minute break to go down to the shop to buy milk for their tea, or to get a coffee from a coffee shop, costing far more than it would cost to just have some available in the office.
Just let me choose how and with whom I spend my time, thanks.
"oh you wanna play videogames/have a massage/play table tennis after work? sure! but you can't leave the office, which means you are accessible by everyone even after hours. and because you are not technically working, you won't get overtime. oops."
I don't understand why _anyone_ should be on a salary model of compensation. It doesn't feel like a privilege awarded to me as a middle-class white-collar worker. The privilege is the fact that I can tell my manager to stick it and I won't get canned immediately.
Of course, employers hate this, but the privilege of salary is being able to tell your manager to stick it to them on a daily basis by pointing to the tasks and showing that they're done.
Maybe at some enlightened place. But all places where I have worked in last 15 years, if it is more that 8 hrs its requirement of job but when its less, one still need to be at office for at least 8 hrs.
The sticking part may be true for once in a while but on daily basis, I need to just suck it up and stay at office regardless.
Did you mean “coaching”? Or is “couching” some new SV term I am unfamiliar with?
Depends on which side of the couch you are, I expect. The couchers (couch-workers?) probably do get stressed by providing couching sessions 8 hours a day.