5 Must Haves for a Great Office Kitchen.

It is important to provide a space for your employees to take a break, make a coffee and enjoy some lunch away from their desks. Having a comfortable space can change the moral in an office and ensure your employees feel well looked after.

All offices should be treated differently though. A small, start-up office kitchen will have different requirements to larger multinational one. That being said, there are a few must haves to make any office kitchen enjoyable and functional for the ones using it.

A Coffee Station

Nothing beats a good coffee. To ensure your staff feel truly looked after, we suggest investing in a good coffee machine. Having the facilities for your staff to make a decent cup of coffee, a few feet away from their desks, saves them constantly having to go down to the shops to buy one. Along with the coffee machine, it is also important to have plenty of mugs and glasses for everyone. There’s nothing worse than going to get a coffee and there are no mugs left.

Good Appliances

Having decent appliances can make or break an office kitchen. Being able to heat up last night’s leftovers for lunch can be a huge win. Depending on the number of employees, having two or more microwaves can save people waiting up to 20 minutes to use the microwave and then only have 10 minutes to heat their lunch and then eat it, without burning their mouths. Microwaves and other small appliances such as toasters, sandwich makers and kettles are affordable options to give your employees, resulting in them enjoying their lunch breaks in the office, rather than going out and spending all their hard-earned pay on lunch elsewhere.

Reasonable Seating

This one is probably the most important one. It is important for everyone to take some time away from their desks to enjoy lunch. Taking a physical break from your desk can result in extended productivity in the afternoon. You want your employees breaks to actually feel like a break rather than them feeling like they’ve been sitting at their desks all day. Investing in a couple of comfortable couches and a decent table with plenty of chairs can make all the difference for your employees.

Clearly Labelled Bins

To ensure you are doing your part for the environment, provide clearly labelled bins for each separate use. Have one for rubbish, one for recycling and one for compost, along with the appropriate bags. Offices are notorious for using mountains of paper, so having the correct recycling bins for that can make a huge difference. Also, showing that you are a conscious business that is sustainable, can be a huge pull for most staff.

A Decent Dishwasher

In an ideal world everyone would wash their own dish after using it and put it away, but for anyone that has worked in an office, we all know that the dishes tend to pile up and more often than not, one or two people always ends up washing them for everyone. Having a decent dishwasher will stop all the arguing, passive-aggressive notes and blaming. A clean kitchen equals a happy work environment.