Back when I was working in Chicago at a late stage startup, I used to have great conversations with the president of the company about our various approaches to managing businesses. We shared war stories, ramblings about taxation in US and EU, and the software developers’ versions of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. But one thing that stuck with me was his statement: “this company will never own a foosball table, because every company I have seen own one went under months after purchasing it”. The conversation that ensued is worth thinking about. When considering what is “cool to have” for employee morale and what they really need, we really need to distance ourselves from our egos.
- First and foremost – as leaders of companies we need to think about how to make our people more efficient and not about how much longer can we keep them in the office. Long hours do not equal good work product. If someone is tired and needs a distraction, they need to go home and recharge.
- This leads me to the next point – inefficiency caused by your team members. In the case of a foosball table, or anything else that involves more than just one person to “blow off steam”, it is bad judgment to enable an environment where one person could drag another one to “play” and therefore drag down the efficiency of the team. How do you help people not get distracted? Simple – don’t provide them with the temptation to do so.
- Last point – “cool stuff” might be something your recruiter will talk about when wooing someone to join the company, but beyond that it is a waste of time, money, and operational efficiency. It is also bad for employee morale and work-life balance. Perks like 401K matches, more days off, encouragement of the staff to get physicals, telecommuting, etc, are what matters and will make your employees stick around. All those “tchotchke” benefits have the same value as the cheap promotional items you get from vendors – cool to talk about for maybe 15 seconds.
UPDATE (2/15/10): Please see the part two of this article: How a foosball table can kill your startup – part two
Photo credit: Helen Cook
Hi, my name is Apolinaras Sinkevicius, but most call me Apollo. I am the guy who takes care of the day-to-day business and technology of rapidly growing companies. 12 years in managing the "nuts and bolts" of companies and being a steward of corporate cultures makes me a seasoned operations professional and right hand person to founders and CEOs.
Very True Apollo. The biggest way to kill employee productivity is to hit his morale. Leaders take decisions that pertain to an employee’s daily life and forget about the “buy in”, they are not even asked before implementing such changes. Rather than concentrating on getting new toys I believe the better way is to Ask them – the internal customers what can be done better for them…
.-= Chanda | BizDharma.com´s last blog .. =-.
I have a more nuanced viewpoint on this… As a manager I hate distractions and reduced productivity. But some of the best people I've worked with were also the biggest foosball players (I suck so I never played
And one of the greatest hackers I know likes to have a tv or video playing in the background… don't ask me why but the guy is in serious Flow, somehow it helps. I guess my summary is, disruptions == bad, but teambuilding and giving great contributors more freedom == good.
I hear you, but at the same time you are missing the point. Gimmicks have very short lifespan. Check out part two to the article where I mention actual observed utilization, discriminatory nature of many of those choices we make, and what are better options.
The productivity of any employee should not be affected by any disturbances like foosball table. It is up to the person to distance himself from real disturbance. It doesn’t matter if you play foosball or not.