Rise & grind: Employers splurge on keeping teams caffeinated while working remotely
Employers kept staff fed and caffeinated while working from home during the pandemic, making up for the loss of coffee and sweets available at the office by expensing Starbucks and Deliveroo orders.
Keeping teams fed and caffeinated while working remotely made up nearly 36 per cent of all expenses claimed during January to November 2020, new research by B2B expense platform Soldo has found.
Employers shelled out on Starbucks, Pret a Manger, Just Eat and Deliveroo to keep employees happy and to replace office snacks and coffees.
Unsurprisingly, employees also invested heavily in keeping remote teams connected during the pandemic via services like Zoom and Slack, which accounted for four per cent of all expenses claimed.
The research, which looked at sectors in the UK and the Europe, found the healthcare industry claimed the most expenses, taking up 13 per cent of all claims made via the platform. Most of their expenses went toward Tesco and Amazon home deliveries, as well as takeaways from Just Eat and Deliveroo, and travel expenses.
Those working in IT came in just behind healthcare workers, claiming 12 per cent of all expenses made, followed by those working in the media and sales and retail, which each claimed 7 per cent.
Those working in the public sector only accounted for 3.5 per cent of all transactions, down from 10 per cent the year before.
Teachers claimed 3.6 per cent of recorded expenses, while employees in the charities and utilities sectors accounted for less than one per cent of all expenses claimed in the first 11 months of 2020.