Workplaces are often considered places where people try to meet their deadlines. However, they’re also communities where collaboration and teamwork thrive. A potluck culture in your office can bring people together over a shared love for food and foster deeper connections between colleagues. Planning an office potluck might look simple at first, but it has more layers to it.
From getting the right clearance to conveying the right idea and setting a theme. Our blog here covers everything you need to know to start an office potluck culture in 2024.
What is an office potluck?
An office potluck is a vibrant event that involves employees bringing their food to the office. It is more like a social gathering than a typical corporate event. Potlucks usually comprise themes that the employees finalize. It isn’t a seasonal event and can be held at any time of the year.
Hosting an office potluck has a ton of benefits, let’s take a look at them:
- It brings people from different departments and hierarchies together.
- Potlucks are a good way to share workplace stories and make fruitful connections.
- Not to mention, they’re great for sharing recipes
Understand the why behind potluck culture
Before initiating a potluck tradition, clarify its purpose. Office potlucks are more than just food-sharing events. They’re opportunities to:
- Encourage cross-departmental connections: Food can break down silos by giving colleagues a reason to interact outside their work bubbles.
- Boost employee morale: Shared meals foster a sense of community, making employees feel more valued and connected.
- Celebrate diversity: Potlucks are perfect for showcasing the cultural and culinary diversity within your team.
- Promote team-building: Planning, sharing, and enjoying a potluck strengthens teamwork and collaboration.
You can set up a potluck culture by aligning it with your workplace values. Doing so justifies the potluck’s addition, as it is all about inclusivity and relationship building.
Gauge your peers’ interest and gather input
Introducing a new tradition works best when employees are involved in the planning. Informing your peers about the new culture and introducing it as a team-building effort will help you propagate it better. Potlucks allow people to share stories and even recipes on different occasions. If you want to gauge your peers’ interest in the practice, the easiest way to do so is by conducting a survey. You can include questions like:
- Would you participate in an office potluck?
- How often should we host potlucks?
- Do you have dietary restrictions or preferences we should consider?
- What types of themes or cuisines would you enjoy?
This not only ensures that the potluck aligns with your peers’ preferences but also makes them feel involved from the start.
Create rules that work for everyone
A successful potluck requires structure without being strict on rules. That’s because everyone is different, and forcing people with different preferences to eat certain things is neither polite nor professional. When you’re organizing a potluck, just think of the people who work with you, their culture, and their eating preferences.
Once you’ve made a list of the participants and their preferences, start by drafting the guidelines. The best practice for drafting a good set of guidelines is to consider things such as dietary options, allergies towards certain dishes, including people who don’t know how to cook, portion sizes, and dish labels. Participation is the objective, and no rule should prevent people from doing so.
The first potluck is key
The first event will set the tone for future potlucks. Start on a small scale to keep it manageable and focus on creating a positive experience. It is not possible to impress everyone at your first event. However, if you get enough people to participate and give them a pleasant experience, you may just have started a good potluck culture at your office.
To make the best of your first office potluck, here are some additional tips that will aid you:
- Pick the right time: A Friday lunch or a mid-week break works great for potlucks. However, you should avoid scheduling potlucks during high-pressure periods.
- Choose a light theme: Choose a simple, relatable theme to keep the first event fun and inclusive.
- Provide additional items: The organizer can supply a few items such as bread, salad or beverages to ensure there’s enough variety.
- Encourage participation: Use gentle reminders to get people excited, but make it clear that participation is optional.
Make it about more than food
While the dishes are central to a potluck, making the event about more than food adds value. Potlucks are social events and need to be treated as such. Food is the central element that binds people together, but it is the stories that people share and the fun events they participate in that make the event enjoyable.
You can increase people’s participation by introducing games, stories, and other fun activities to the event. It’ll help regulate and maintain the festive mood while bringing people closer.
Foster a judgment-free zone
One of the biggest barriers to people’s participation is the fear of judgment. Whether it’s about cooking skills or food preferences, nobody wants to be judged for the way they are. When planning an office potluck, make sure to give the participants a positive environment that feels welcoming.
To remove the air of judgment from your potluck venue, you can start by appreciating all contributions, avoiding food critiques, and leading the event enthusiastically. This will set a good example for the upper management and will allow more people to share their stories and recipes.
Gather feedback and build momentum with regular events
Once you’re done with your first office potluck, conduct a short survey of sorts and collect everyone’s feedback. Include a number of relevant questions with grades ranging from one to five or ten, with one being a bad experience and five or ten being the best. Gauge people’s responses and ask for suggestions to make things more interesting. One successful potluck can spark enthusiasm for future ones, but consistency is key. Schedule regular potlucks to build a lasting tradition.
To make things further interesting for everyone, keep experimenting with themes every quarter. You can also target cultural holidays and festivals or include season-specific themes as well. The possibilities are endless, and the experimentation is up to you.
A bonus that’ll keep things interesting
An office potluck is all about good food, collaborations, and stories from different people at your organization. However, as mentioned previously, not everyone knows how to cook and keeping them out of the event isn’t a good thing to do.
In such situations, you can rely on a catering solution that serves affordable, healthy and tasty meals that aren’t fast food items. And the best part is that this solution isn’t just for an office potluck but for everyday use.
Introducing the lechef smart fridge and mobile app. With the lechef smart fridge and mobile app, you can:
- Serve up to 50 employees with a single smart fridge.
- Save up to 11 hours per month on food choices.
- Save your employees from fast food catering services.
- Pre-order from over 200 healthy recipes using the lechef mobile app.
- Never worry about smart fridge restocking.
- And boost employee health and morale.
Give your employees the smart and healthy dining experience they deserve with the lechef smart fridge today.
And that’s all it takes to create an office potluck culture
Starting an office potluck culture isn’t just about food. It’s about fostering community, building bridges, and creating moments of joy in the workplace. By focusing on inclusivity and engagement, you can create a tradition that employees genuinely look forward to.
Remember, the goal isn’t perfection; it’s about sharing, connecting, and enjoying each other’s company. With careful planning, you can start an office tradition that’ll be cherished for years and even decades.
