What is a lunch and learn strategy, and does it actually benefit a business? There are many ways to build camaraderie and unity within your organization, but lunch and learns are one strategy that typically ends with a sweet treat, and who doesn’t like that?
Meetings are now a workplace staple, and their increasing frequency tells us that employers wholeheartedly believe in their ability to fuel productivity. While they aren’t wrong about the utility of regular meetings as a prime way to exchange ideas, these interactions are formal, impersonal, and often leave workers drained. Recent data also shows that an overuse of such meetings steals away productive focus time from employees. The same goes for training programs as well.
While training activities are crucial to ensuring uniformity of skill and experience among employees, their overly structured nature leaves employees reluctant to participate. Lunch and learn programs and strategies offer up an easy solution for businesses that want to encourage their employees to come together, share ideas, and gain insights by conducting this interaction over a shared meal. As some might say, food is the way to an employee’s heart.
Lunch and learn sessions are a great way to make training and discussions a more interactive and engaging part of an organization’s routine. (Image: Pexels)
What Is Lunch and Learn? Let’s Unwrap Some Key Strategies to Utilize with Your Workforce
Lunch and learn programs or “brown bag” sessions are workplace strategies where employers conduct interactive work-related tasks over a meal for employees. These trainings typically take place over the lunchtime break, and involve workers spending time with a trainer or guest speaker as well as their colleagues. The scheduled learning over lunch sounds chaotic and messy in theory, but the distraction of a meal often allows employees to let down their guard and interact with each other on a more immersive level, which meetings and training sessions don’t always allow for.
The meaning of a lunch and learning program lies in the name, and conducting these sessions is, in fact, as easy as they seem. These training sessions don’t require a fixed schedule or rigorous planning, although the person organizing the food order might disagree. Having a regular schedule can be helpful for the planning team, but it can also be conducted once a month or only when the need for training arises as well. Employers can also choose to fit this training into a single lunch break or plan for a few consecutive days of such discussions to keep the conversation going.
Depending on the organization, the nature and content of these Brown bag sessions may vary. Organizations can choose to sit down with employees bringing their own meals to these voluntary interactions, but it is much better to offer a catered lunch, both to encourage participation and reward the employees for showing up to the discussion, eliminating any awkwardness over the different ways employees might approach a meal.
Do Lunch and Learn Sessions Actually Make A Difference?
In the workplace, friendships are built over lunch breaks and coffee runs. We have all had our own experiences bonding over packed lunches, a shared dislike for oat milk, or splitting down lunch orders to cut costs. These exchanges are often the most relaxing part of an employee’s workday and are an integral period during which relationships at work are artfully built. Daily intrusions on this employee-bonding time may not be welcome, but occasional lunch and learn sessions scheduled during this time can help make the most of this natural inclination towards interactivity.
Often, these lunch and learn training breaks aren’t just about imparting information to employees in a more relaxed manner, but instead about encouraging them to interact with each other and share their ideas and thoughts more freely. These lunch and learn interactions don’t have to exclusively center on a direct project or work-related issue, either.
From understanding how employees feel about mental health and workplace well-being to exploring how they feel about upcoming organizational change, these interactions facilitate an exchange of ideas. Employers can alternatively share training material with employees beforehand, and use the lunch break to explore their thoughts and opinions on the topic of choice. Shifting away from a Teams call or a boardroom meeting to conduct these exchanges is often enough to let the ideas flow more freely.
What Are the Benefits of Lunch and Learns at Work?
There are many benefits to a lunch and learn session, not the least of which is offering employees a warm meal and a break from routine. These brown bag sessions can also be beneficial in other ways:
- Acknowledging employees for their contributions with a wholesome meal
- Building cross-functional team interactions to allow employees to get to know colleagues from other departments
- Facilitating a social opportunity for workers to get to know their colleagues more deeply and build a more substantial bond
- Teaching employees how to share ideas and consider alternate perspectives
- Creating a more relaxed environment for employees at work in order to combat their stress and burnout
- Introducing new concepts and ideas in an environment where employees can think about them more deeply
- Strengthening the employee’s bond with their employers and colleagues
- Establishing a culture of communication and transparency through frank, introspective conversations
- Improving the relationship between employers and employees
- Giving remote or hybrid workers a chance to share a meal with their team every few weeks
There are Some Cons of Lunch and Learns
It is important to acknowledge that not everyone will be a fan of these lunch and learn experiences, especially if they are scheduled too frequently or involve very technical training that requires employees to take notes for fear of losing out on critical information. Conducting these lunch and learns can have some drawbacks:
- Frustrating employees who just want to relax or focus their attention elsewhere during their breaks
- Diluting the purpose and content of the discussion when more serious topics require a structured environment
- Tiring out employees when the topics are too data-heavy and require memorization rather than creative thinking
- Creating confusion if they are poorly planned and require employees to reschedule meetings that were previously eating into their lunch breaks already
- Pushing away workers further when they are made mandatory, or employees who don’t participate are penalized
- Oversimplifying and condensing discussions and trainings that require more time to play out
- Adding to employee workloads if they need to prepare presentations, talking points, or other material for this training
Most of these drawbacks of lunch and learn training programs can be addressed by some forethought and investing in some degree of planning for the session.
Should You Invest in a Lunch and Learn Training Strategy for Your Organization?
Absolutely! Once you understand the purpose of a lunch and learn session and the meaningful benefits it can offer your organization, there should be no reason to hesitate to try it out for yourself. Beware that the first few attempts may only result in awkward glances and stilted conversations, as employees will feel an initial sense of hesitation over trying to decipher what is expected of them. Employees also enjoy having their lunch breaks to themselves, and the prospect of a free meal isn’t enough to lure many of them in.
These early sessions can benefit from centering on more light-hearted, low-stakes topics to simplify the experience of sharing thoughts and ideas over them. It’s also useful to invest in engaging speakers who know how to work their way around an audience. Over time, these lunch and learn training programs can evolve into an experience that employees look forward to, provided that they are allowed to actually relax and speak freely, even if a professional tone and language remain mandatory.
Organizations can also use these sessions to gather inputs and feedback on operations, even communicating upcoming decisions and understanding how employees feel about them. We wouldn’t, however, recommend floating the idea of unpleasant topics like layoffs and RTO policies during these conversations for fear of turning the session into a food fight. Ultimately, lunch and learn strategies are a great way to build deeper connections with employees and treat the learning experience as an opportunity rather than a chore.
Do you enjoy lunch and learn sessions or are they more trouble than they’re worth? Share your opinions with us in the comments. Subscribe to The HR Digest for more insights into the many ways that you can update your workplace and turn tiresome tasks into opportunities of growth.
