Either these employers have seen a few too many episodes of “Mad Men” or they’ve tapped into a great way to keep their workers motivated.
Yelp, Inc., Tello, Inc., CrowdFlower and Twitter are four companies that currently allow employees to imbibe right there in the office. Their progressive pro-drinking policies were recently profiled in Bloomberg’s Businessweek.
Because working long hours is norm rather the exeption at these firms, employees are allowed to partake in some of the recreational activities they’re used to enjoying outside of the office.
While the idea may seem absurd to more traditional companies, the logic behind the move seems pretty sound: Treat people like adults, and they’ll behave accordingly.
The business review website Yelp is a perfect example. The company actually keeps a keg in its office at all times. While employees can drink as much as they’d like, the amount of booze is monitored — giving employees a very strong incentive to drink responsibly.
Before taking a drink, workers much log-in to an iPad app that’s attached to the community keg. The app monitors every ounce of beer employees consume.
Readers, what do you think: Is this the next step in work/life balance or are these companies asking for trouble? Let us know in the Comments section.
