Sendbird公司通过提供免费的周五午餐（特别是越南河粉）来鼓励员工返回办公室。这项传统最初由公司CFO发起，因为他本人喜欢这种三明治。随着时间的推移，这一福利吸引了更多团队在周五也选择到办公室，因为它便于协作。公司首席长官表示，食物确实是吸引和留住员工到办公室的一种有效方式。在AI快速发展的当下，她认为远程工作已不再完全适用，因为产品、客户期望和工作节奏都在快速变化，实时协作和快速决策变得至关重要，而远程工作会减缓这一进程。尽管没有强制要求周五返岗，但免费午餐的吸引力已显而易见。

🥢 **以免费午餐吸引员工返岗：** Sendbird公司将提供免费的周五午餐，特别是员工喜爱的越南河粉，作为吸引员工返回办公室的一种福利。这一举措被证明是有效的，能够鼓励更多员工选择到办公室工作。

🤝 **协作需求驱动返岗：** 最初，一些团队选择在周五到办公室是因为他们发现这样更容易进行协作。这种自发的行为表明，在某些情况下，面对面的互动对于团队合作和效率提升至关重要。

📈 **AI时代对协作的新要求：** 公司首席长官认为，随着AI技术的飞速发展，工作节奏和产品迭代都在加速，客户期望也在快速变化。在这种环境下，实时协作和快速决策变得更加关键，远程工作可能会阻碍这一进程。

💡 **食物作为激励手段的有效性：** 数据分析显示，“食物是吸引和留住员工到办公室的一种方式”。免费午餐的成功实践证明，提供有吸引力的福利是鼓励员工回归办公室的有效策略之一。

💼 **平衡远程与办公室工作：** 虽然Sendbird公司鼓励员工返岗，尤其是在AI驱动的快速变化环境中强调协作的重要性，但目前并没有强制要求员工必须在周五到办公室。免费午餐的吸引力被视为一种非强制性的激励措施。

AI customer service platform Sendbird caters a Friday lunch for employees who come into the office.The free lunch is popular and has encouraged more workers to return to the office.Sendbird's chief of staff told BI she hopes to see people "organically" come in five days a week.

On Fridays, employees at Sendbird's headquarters are treated to a free lunch — one of the perks of showing up in person.

Yeji Yoon, the company's chief of staff, told Business Insider that the company's chief financial officer started the office tradition for "selfish" reasons: He loves bahn mi sandwiches, particularly those from a local Vietnamese spot.

Fridays aren't official in-person days. Since early 2024, the company has required those who can come into its San Mateo headquarters to be on-site Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. It's also rolling out return-to-office mandates at its other offices around the world.

But then a few of the company's teams, including the finance team, decided to come on Fridays, too, because it was easier to collaborate.

"Our CFO would start going around asking anyone else in the office, do you want a sandwich?" Yoon said. "It just became this regular thing, so it grew extremely organically."

Now, there's a Slack channel dedicated to Friday office lunch. Bahn mi orders are entered onto a Google Sheet, and everyone who participates has to submit their orders by 11 a.m.

For "fun," one of the company's performance marketing managers started looking at the data: total orders over time, the most popular customization — no peppers, more cilantro — and how orders vary depending on the number of people on vacation.

The conclusion is that "food is definitely a way to keep people or bring people in the office," Yoon said.

While academics, sociologists, and working parents have all lauded the benefits of remote work, Yoon said it's just not practical anymore, especially with the new changes in AI.

Remote roles are best when "there's no real dependency on collaboration or iterations or real-time decision-making that needs to happen," she said. "Now, especially with AI, where everything is changing so quickly, product is changing so quickly, customers' expectations are changing really quickly — nobody really knows how fast everything is changing. They don't really understand it. There's a lot of collaboration that has to happen on the go."

The pace of work and the company's product releases slow down when workers are remote, she said. And while there are no plans to force employees to come into the office on Fridays, the free bahm mi might be all they need to make it happen.