Abstract

We all had the experience of sharing meals with coworkers and managers at workplace events. But why is food served during those events? This study aims to examine the effects of food on employees during workplace events. This study built on the impression management framework and the mealtime conversation to investigate the effects of organizational food events on employees’ work engagement levels and affective emotions. The interviews with nine female participants in Canada showed that employees did not focus on work during organizational events after the pandemic. However, sharing food with coworkers left favorable emotions in employees, and stronger ties were built during those workplace events. The results pushed us to explore the effects of workplace events on employees’ attentional focus and energy. Building on the attention restoration theory, this study investigated the effects of food and the different types of interactions during workplace events, work-related versus non-work-related interactions, on employees’ attentional focus and their cognitive, emotional, prosocial, and physical energy. The 133 surveys have shown that employees’ soft attentional focus was stimulated during work-related events compared to non-work-related events. The hard attentional focus was linked to higher reports of prosocial energy. Furthermore, the results also showed that food served during workplace events restored employees’ cognitive, emotional, and prosocial energy. Our study contributed to the understanding of the reason behind serving food during workplace events and demonstrated that corporate events provide an opportunity for employees to build stronger relationships with their coworkers and restore their cognitive, emotional, and prosocial energy.