Expert Guides
Re-0pening your office catering
As offices across the UK prepare for re-opening, many people will feel anxious about their transition back to the workplace. The need for reassurance and trust has never been greater.
As our sector of the industry re-emerges and we eagerly focus on things returning to the ‘next normal’, we know that customers and employees will have new concerns about their health and safety, and the risk of infection outside of their home environment. Throughout the pandemic, BM has been developing, adapting, training and evolving all our processes to ensure that when we reopen, our customers’ and employees’ well-being is our number one priority.
Opening with confidence
bartlett mitchell has developed five tool-kits to guide our clients and teams through the process for re-opening a safe and secure workplace catering facility:
COVID-19 risk assessment
New ways of working – a comprehensive mandatory training program for all team members
Client decision implementation plan
Step-by-step COVID-19 mobilisation plan
COVID-19 Manager App with information and resources for all team members
By following the steps outlined in our essential tool-kits, we can ensure that all stakeholders are thoroughly briefed and reassured. Using the tool-kits allows critical decisions to be made in advance to plan for people’s safe return to the workplace. Our teams always think on their feet, however using our tool-kits mean they are even more ready for the new expectations and requirements of workplace catering.
New measures
All new measures to facilitate social distancing, enhanced disinfection and reduced contact need to be understood, trained and implemented by the catering team.
Eating places are spaces where people congregate to chat, meet and collaborate. It is vital that all aspects of the catering environment are managed vociferously to reduce any risk of virus transmission.
Examples of some of the measures that can be introduced in collaboration with clients include:
Implement contactless payment.
Consider a reduction to the number of seats available in the facility to allow for safe social distancing
Demarcation of specific areas in the restaurant or café for queuing, paying and collecting pre-ordered food and beverages via the app
Installation of transparent screens to protect the customers and our team members
Temporary closure or removal of self-serve counters such as salad bars
Deployment of a front of house catering and cleaning team to regularly disinfect all surfaces and contact points, increasing safety and offering our customers added reassurance
Increase hand sanitiser dispense units throughout all areas
Implement new and extended service times to meet the catering requirements for customers working longer hours. This can flatten the peak service times
Introduce pre-packaged main meal and snack options for customers to take-away from the catering facilities
Continued use of face coverings and blue vinyl gloves for food handlers and front-line catering staff.
Reset and refresh
Alongside the measures introduced to reassure our customers and team, we are working with our clients to use food to attract people back to their offices. Our food and face to face interaction with their colleagues is what our customers have missed.
Over the past year we have developed new safe ways to work. We have also had the time to nurture our first love – amazing food, great tasting coffee and our people.
After months of lockdown with uninspired ‘leftover lunches’, we recognise that for the customers returning to the workplace, the quality and taste of our food and drinks offer will be even more important than ever. Our culinary development team have created an exciting range of new recipes, menus, concepts, pop-ups and a whole spectrum of food offers from sustainable plant-based, healthy main meals to decadent afternoon indulgences.
With customers even more focused on where the ingredients come from, we have developed relationships with a number of new British producers. We are also loud and proud about the functional and environmental benefits of the ingredients BM use. This ensures that our customers are informed and can feel great about the sustainability credentials of the food they eat.
Many of our valued bmFamily💜💚 members have been on periods of furlough since the first lockdown in 2020. Our dedicated and caring board team, along with our ‘people team’ have worked throughout the pandemic to ensure that our teams have been supported, trained, developed and entertained. But most importantly they have always remained in touch. With lockdown restrictions lifting, our teams are ready to return to work, adopt the ‘next normal’ procedures, open the doors and welcome our customers back. They are match-fit.
Enjoying a Perkee coffee or freshly prepared nutritious lunch will have never felt better or safer.
