The Coffee Van

Is your workplace a regular stopping point for your local mobile coffee business?

I've personally witnessed a good majority of my clients workforce line up for their daily brew from mobile vendors and have made a startling discovery.  The most recent site I visited had a workforce of 50+ employees.  When the coffee van pulled up in to the driveway and tooted the horn, half of the staff in the office jumped to their feet and proceeded outside to line up for their morning coffee.  Whilst each coffee was being made all the staff engaged idle chit-chat with their fellow employees even after receiving their coffee.  It was 30 minutes later after the last coffee had been served and all the staff had returned to their workstations.  From my understanding, this was a daily ritual at this workplace.


I would like to put this into perspective for all the business' out there in a similar scenario.

25 Employees at $4.00/cup of coffee =  Coffee Vendor makes $100 for 30 minutes work. 

Employer looses 25 employees for 30 minutes = 12.5 hours/day of lost productivity (estimated loss $275/day).

Over the course of a year that is 3000+ hours of lost productivity at an estimated loss of $66,000.

Based on the above figures, it would be cheaper for a business with 50+ employees to have a full time Barista on hand serving coffees all day to your employees workstations for free.

Not wanting to put mobile coffee vendors our of business, it might be worth coming up with some sort of arrangement with your local vendor to organise a better time for visits to your workplace that will not be such a drain on your companies time or charging them to come to your workplace.

You need to weigh the cost of a happy employee versus the time drain on your business to decide if you need to act on this, as they say "time is money".  How much is it costing your business?