Eleanor Whitney is the Managing Editor at Managed by Q. She is a writer, musician, and community manager based in Brooklyn, New York. In 2013 Microcosm Publishing released her first book, Grow, a field guide for creatives to build satisfying companies and careers. She is currently working on her second book, a feminist memoir, to be published in 2018.

Managed by Q is the platform for office management. Q makes it easy to run an office by connecting companies to services, including cleaning, maintenance, office administration, IT, and security. A solution for recurring and ad-hoc office needs, Q saves companies valuable time and supports office operations for thousands of businesses nationwide.

​Companies can save money—and make money—by offering a surprising perk: lunch.
 
That’s right. Lunch doesn’t have to be a time suck or an isolating occasion where employees eat solo at their desks. And you don’t have to wonder when your staff, after going off-site, will get back to work. One company found that snack and coffee runs alone accounted for 2.4 billion hours of lost productivity. Catered lunches improves productivity, workplace morale, employee health, and your bottom line.
 
Save (and make) more money
 
A typical American office worker spends an average of $3,000 a year on coffee and lunch during the work week. For an employee eating out, an average lunch costs $11, but that per-meal cost can be lower when an organization provides catered lunch.


You may also be able to save on your tax bill (discuss this with your tax professional first). When a business provides on-site food for its employees; unlike the 50 percent deduction for restaurant meals, that cost may be fully tax deductible. Of course, some eligibility considerations apply for a full deduction, including:
 

• Meals must be provided on the business’s premises.
• The meals must be available for all staff. Providing meals to select employees (such as management) could be only 50% deductible.
• Meals must be considered a perk or fringe benefit that’s part of employee compensation. 

Your budget or circumstances may not currently allow you to cater an on-site meal five days a week, and that’s okay. Figure out a catering schedule such as every Friday or Monday, that works for your business and budget.
 
The gains? Employees stay in the office, which means they will likely engage more with one another. That can turn into not only improved morale and company culture, but higher productivity.

Improve company culture
 
Everyone appreciates a free meal, and your employees are likely no different. Free lunch is a visible perk, and it’s a benefit you can offer at a lower cost compared to other benefits or perks. More importantly, it can increase employee happiness in the workplace (up to 30%, according to a WorkSphere survey) as well as contribute to a greater connection to the company. Typically, the more connected an employee feels to work, the more they are committed and productive.
 
Free catered lunch can also assist your recruiting efforts, especially among Millennials, the generation now comprising the largest part of America’s workforce since Baby Boomers. Quality snacks and lunches are important to Millennials, but it’s smart to expect anyone you interview to ask about your company’s food perks.
 
Work and success are about relationships, and sharing meals builds crucial interpersonal social ties. In a busy office, it can be hard for departments—or even employees in the same department—to communicate effectively and build stronger bonds. A catered lunch helps employees socialize, which leads to improved inter-department communication, say, between sales and marketing or IT and customer service. Not only does that deeper collaboration ease day-to-day headaches, it also incubates innovation, cooperation, and initiatives that build revenue and productivity.
 
Improve health
 
Don’t want to think of it as lunch? Try thinking of catered meals as a core component of your company’s health and wellness program.
 
Absenteeism and working while sick contribute to $227 billion a year in lost productivity, part of an overall $576 billion annual health-related productivity loss. A Harvard study found that for each dollar a company spent on wellness programs, medical costs decreased $3.27. In practical terms, you cut your productivity losses when healthier employees miss less work due to illness, doctor visits, and medical procedures.
 
That doesn’t mean every catered lunch has to be a salad bar. It does mean, however, that you can balance your staff’s food preferences with healthy meals made with quality ingredients.
 
A good lunch at the office even has the potential to get an employee thinking more about their overall health and meal choices, which can lead to a healthier, happier, more productive worker.
 
Improve productivity
 
At the end of the day, though, office perks have to make up costs and bolster your bottom line. A catered lunch at the office can do just that.
 
Want your office to be more productive? Healthy meals can boost productivity 20 percent, says the International Labour Organization (ILO). Overall return on investment (ROI) for catered lunches can reach as high as 150 percent.
 
Conclusion

Instead of employees spending an hour (or more) away from the office, they could be on site, eating good food, engaging with one another, and discussing work issues and projects—all for the cost of lunch. Price out employee compensation over an hour for lunch, contrast that with what you may spend on a catered lunch, and examine the potential tax savings. The difference will likely surprise you—and show you a way to increase productivity, reduce costs, and bring improved innovation, performance, and revenue to your company. It’ll be time and money well spent—all for the price of lunch.

Not many employees get any education on their stock options. This post is a good start…

STOCK 
Owning a share of stock makes you an owner in that company. If you own a share of Apple stock, you are a part owner of Apple Inc and entitled to receive dividends the company pays, vote on matters that come before shareholders, etc.

Apple’s stock price (any public company’s) can be found at yahoo finance, on CNBC, in the Wall Street Journal, etc. Private companies hire an independent valuation firm each year to estimate their fair market value and share price.

OPTIONS
An option is the right, but not the obligation, to buy a share of stock at a specified price (exercise price) for a specified period of time.

The exercise price is equal to the price of a share on the date you are granted options. You want the share price to increase over time so the difference between the share price and the exercise price (which doesn’t change), called the spread, grows very large.

There are two types of options, Incentive Stock Options (ISOs) and Non-Qualified Stock Options (NQSOs or NSOs). They work the same way, but ISOs are potentially treated more favorably when it comes to taxes.

KEY DATES
Grant date is when you receive your award of options and learn how many you get, the exercise price, the vesting schedule, and the expiration date.

Vesting usually happens over time and a typical vesting schedule is 4-year vesting with a one year cliff. This means that none of your options vest until you’ve been at the company for a year, ¼ of your options vest at that point, and the rest vest each month over the next three years.

Vesting date means you now own and can exercise your options (but you don’t have to).

Exercise date is when (if) you choose to use your options to buy shares of stock. You pay the exercise price per share, regardless of what the current share price is.

Sale of Stock date This is when you decide to sell shares. For employees of a private company, this is typically only after the company has had an IPO (or is sold).

Expiration date This is when your unexercised options are no longer valid, typically 10 years after grant date.

IPO
An IPO is an Initial Public Offering – the first time the company will sell shares (part of its ownership) to the public. The company hires an investment bank to underwrite the offering and they value the company, help sell shares to the public, and get shares trading in public stock markets.

Something else happens at an IPO – the lockup period starts. This is a period of time (often 180 days) during which investors, management, and employees are not allowed to sell shares.

BTW – you’ve probably been wondering how to estimate the value of YOUR options or shares. Here’s a simple approach – most companies’ shares are priced between $10 and $20 at IPO. So, multiplying the number of shares you have (or the number of options to buy shares) x $15 gives you a good approximation of the value you’ll have IF your company has a successful IPO.

TAXES 
The federal government has three ways to tax your income – as Ordinary Income, under the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT), and as Capital Gains on the sale of an asset.

Ordinary Income (like your salary) is taxed at rates from 10% up to 39.6%. The AMT rate is 26% but applies to a larger amount of income as some tax deductions are added back and other items are added in. Short-term Capital Gains on assets sold one year or less after purchase are taxed as Ordinary Income. Long-term Capital Gains on assets sold longer than one year after purchase are taxed at 15%.

So generally speaking, Ordinary Income “is what it is”, AMT is “bad” and Long-term Capital Gains are “good”.

TAXES ON OPTIONS
There is no tax due at Grant or Vesting date.

​At Exercise date, for NSOs, the spread is taxed as Ordinary Income while for ISOs the spread is included in your AMT calculation, and you may or may not owe AMT – this is the “potentially more favorable” tax treatment of ISOs.

At Sale of Stock date, there is tax due on the gain. Whether the sale date is less or more than one year from purchase (exercise) is the big determiner of whether you’ll pay Ordinary Income rates or lower Long-term Capital Gains rates.

BIG 3 CONSIDERATIONS
There are three things to keep in mind when thinking about what to do with your options:

1. Exercising your options means you are spending and risking your own money.
2. The likelihood of an IPO (or sale of the company) is lower earlier and higher later.
3. Taxes are lower earlier and higher later.

CONCLUSION
You now have a basic idea of the workings of employee stock options – feel good, stock options are a way for you to participate financially in the success of your employer! Download your Financial Check-up List now!

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If you want to throw a great gaming party, consider Joey the Cat. The San Francisco OrgOrg Chapter hosted our June Happy Hour at their event space, which features classic games like skeeball and air hockey and can accommodate up to 100 people. They also rent their games and have an LA location, making them the ultimate Office Manager's resource.

Our friends at Zerocater coordinated a BBQ feast from Brother Baby's BBQ with finger lickin' brisket, pulled pork and mac n' cheese, plus beer and wine from the bar experts at Office Libations. 

The group had a blast getting to know each other over games and good grub. We even busted out some OrgOrg swag for the occasion! ​