News Intel resumes free coffee and tea for its employees — $100-million-per-year program partly reinstated to boost employee morale

[Admin]

Intel is reinstating free coffee and tea for its employees months after it suspended the beverage benefit to save on costs.

Intel resumes free coffee and tea for its employees — $100-million-per-year program partly reinstated to boost employee morale : Read more

 

[Li Ken-un]

Having had work days with coffee and work days with no coffee/tea… easy to understand the drain to worker productivity (and thus, company profits) of the latter.

 

[ekio]

100 millions per year for coffee tea ????

Now I understand why they’re broke.

Even for 100k employees, that’s 1000 per employee per year. If they have their own baristas, they can make high quality coffee and tea much for less than a dollar per cup, so either their employee drink 40 cups a day, or they order overpriced coffees from starbucks via uber eats each time.

 

[Ogotai]

and what if you dont drink tea or coffee ???

 

[DBCMX]

100 millions per year for coffee tea ????

Now I understand why they’re broke.

Even for 100k employees, that’s 1000 per employee per year. If they have their own baristas, they can make high quality coffee and tea much for less than a dollar per cup, so either their employee drink 40 cups a day, or they order overpriced coffees from starbucks via uber eats each time.

Or they hire their buddies company that overcharges them a <Mod Edit> lot.

 

[TechieTwo]

I wonder if they get a free cup of coffee with their pink slip?

 

[Giroro]

100 millions per year for coffee tea ????

No, $100 Million for the old food benefit, which was was more than just coffee.

And apparently Intel realized they were still being gouged, which is part of why they shut it down.

 

[DS426]

This is hilarious. $100M a year in employee benefits? I feel like the problem isn't even that watercoolers and coffee is available for free but employees are getting way too much of this, lol, i.e. lacking some modesty.

I'm a believer in small employee perks, but this is just a reflection of Intel's crazy overhead that they should have began addressing a few years ago instead of waiting and having to get this aggressive.

What would a $100M/yr equally divided per person raise look like??

 

[hotaru251]

Wanna know what would boost morale?

If gelsinger took a pay cut.

share in the pain that those on bottom of totem pole suffer when they dont know if/when they will lose their jobs due to stuff outside their control.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Granted it was a way smaller Fortune 500 company but we had free whatever we wanted drinks and some small snacks.

And despite being able to request the fridges be stocked with whatever, there was always that one pig that pilfered one particular item, as @DS426 pointed out, ie lacking some medesty.

So with my all access IT pass I'd pilfer (within reason 1 or 2 said drinks) from the executive floor that was always more than stocked and stick in the computer cart.

My personal story aside, it is a morale booster for sure and absolutely demotivating when a perk like that goes away.

 

[why_wolf]

At its peak in 2022 Intel had around 131,900 employees. So 100 mil / 131k = $758.15 per employee

758.15 / 260 work days a year = $2.92 per person per work day.

From that perspective it's a very reasonable amount.

However I think we all know that not all 131k employees actually got access to this free food/drink perk. So its likely the $ per employee was much, much higher.

 

[SyCoREAPER]

Wanna know what would boost morale?

If gelsinger took a pay cut.

share in the pain that those on bottom of totem pole suffer when they dont know if/when they will lose their jobs due to stuff outside their control.

That's unfortunately the corporate world. The people up top making decisions they don't understand that benefits the company financially and them by extension most, not the workers. That will only get worse and has been.

(Maybe youre old enough) Remember when employees were valued, taken care of and had advancement opportunities? Those days are long gone. We might as well be wearing numbered jackets like in Squid Game

 

[why_wolf]

Granted it was a way smaller Fortune 500 company but we had free whatever we wanted drinks and some small snacks.

And despite being able to request the fridges be stocked with whatever, there was always that one pig that pilfered one particular item, as @DS426 pointed out, ie lacking some medesty.

So with my all access IT pass I'd pilfer (within reason 1 or 2 said drinks) from the executive floor that was always more than stocked and stick in the computer cart.

My personal story aside, it is a morale booster for sure and absolutely demotivating when a perk like that goes away.

Yes the one greedy a**hole who ruins it for everyone else.

At my job we stock our own vending machines but charge essentially a break even price. Its an employee convenience, not a revenue center. A can pop still costs $.50 under my watch.

 

[joeer77]

They used to get free soda too. No mention of it here?

 

[bit_user]

This is hilarious. $100M a year in employee benefits? I feel like the problem isn't even that watercoolers and coffee is available for free but employees are getting way too much of this, lol, i.e. lacking some modesty.

It's only about $4 per employee per workday. For a tech company, that's not a lot. Some companies provide free snacks, energy drinks, even free lunches, and free catered dinners for those working late. Google is pretty famous for this, and I think the food & chefs were also top notch.

However, I'm pretty sure most of Intel's employees are manufacturing-related, and those would indeed be usual benefits for factory workers. So, either the free food benefits are mainly for the office workers, or it's pretty standard stuff and more broadly-based.

My employer gives us free tea & coffee and subsidizes our on-site cafeteria. This helps keeps employees from leaving the office, during the day, which would be a drain on productivity equal to much more than what the company spends on these things.

What would a $100M/yr equally divided per person raise look like??

$1k. For tech workers, especially senior ones, the convenience of having on-site snacks and beverages might be worth more to them than an extra $1k (pre-tax).

 

[bit_user]

At my job we stock our own vending machines but charge essentially a break even price. Its an employee convenience, not a revenue center. A can pop still costs $.50 under my watch.

At the last startup I worked at, I was the soda fridge person. The CEO was a big coffee drinker, so that was free, but it was pot-brewed coffee and not the pricey k-cups or similar.

The way I ran the soda fridge was to leave a notepad next to it. You'd write down your name and add a tick for each can. I asked people to restock it with whatever they drank the most of, which would cancel out the equivalent number of credits. I would periodically stock up whenever we ran low, and try to settle up with people every couple months. I probably lost a small amount of money on it, but only something trivial.

 

[hotaru251]

That's unfortunately the corporate world. The people up top making decisions they don't understand that benefits the company financially and them by extension most, not the workers. That will only get worse and has been.

(Maybe youre old enough) Remember when employees were valued, taken care of and had advancement opportunities? Those days are long gone. We might as well be wearing numbered jackets like in Squid Game

Nintendo did it right. Wii U flopped and instead of blaming bottom CEO cut his pay so it owuldnt harm the lower workers.

 

[bit_user]

Nintendo did it right. Wii U flopped and instead of blaming bottom CEO cut his pay so it owuldnt harm the lower workers.

Japanese CEOs get much lower compensation than at US-based companies, which makes me a little skeptical his paycut was more than symbolic.

In the US, I think the CEO nominates at least some of the board members, which creates a conflict of interest when it comes time for them to take votes on CEO compensation. This is probably one of the main reasons they make so much more than in most other countries.