Would free lunches lure you back into a return to the office?
twin-pronged campaign has been launched to revive the hospitality industry and get workers back into offices.
The government is being urged to give free lunches to all city centre workers, following the success of its Eat Out to Help Out initiative.
Jonathan Ratcliffe, from services office company offices.co.uk that is spearheading “Lunch is on us” campaign, said: “City centres are struggling, cafés and sandwich shops empty, trains and buses underused. We want the government to incentivise their use by providing lunch and travel vouchers. It’s not dissimilar to the Eat Out scheme, and just as important, possibly more so.”
The thinking behind the “Lunch is on us” campaign is to incentivise office workers back to work by using the same style of tactics as used in the hugely popular “Eat Out to Help Out” scheme. Bosses would reward loyal workers with free £5 vouchers. The Eat Out to Help Out scheme does not really help
Aoffice workers, who generally buy takeout food to the value of around £5 each day. “Every office I’ve been into recently has spent a fortune on COVID protection measures. They are safe, we just need a little help to get folks back into the swing of working life again. We are asking the government to support city centres in encouraging workers back into the office”, said Mr Ratcliffe.
This is how the campaign would work:
Government would provide free lunch vouchers for the value of £5
Bosses would hand out vouchers every day
Valid in city centre cafés and sandwich shops only
Restriction to working days only
The same campaign could be used to incentivise different parts of city centre working life, such as providing free transport vouchers to encourage use of the public transport system just like the “Fix your Bike Voucher Scheme” did for bike usage.
Mr Ratcliffe has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson and the Chancellor the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to campaign for the scheme. If enough interest is shown a Government petition will be launched.
“We need some serious out of the box thinking here, we can’t sit back and just cross our fingers,” he said. “City centre businesses are on the edge - we need folks back in the office spending money, and anyway who doesn’t love a free lunch?”
Online company offices. co.uk finds growing businesses the right office space.
The Eat Out To Help Out scheme is running until the end of August and offers halfprice meals, capped at £10, in restaurants, cafes and bars on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Meals must be eaten on the premises and there is no limit to how many times the discount can be used.
More than 80,000 restaurants have signed up to the initiative including fast food chains such as KFC and McDonalds.
Diners used the scheme more than 10.5 million times in its first week, the Treasury has reported.
The government has allocated £500 million to Eat Out To Help Out policy.