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Are Companies Overstepping Their Bounds By Regulating Employee Expenses to Promote Diet or Environmental Choices?

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Recently, WeWork announced that employees will not be allowed to expense meals including poultry, pork, or beef, nor will the company pay for meat at any of its events to purportedly reduce the environmental impact of the company. Is this policy overstepping their bounds? Is this a nicely thinly veiled way to reduce expenses in the name of the environment? A publicity stunt?

We tapped some technology thought leaders for their insights on the matter and included a response from the WeWork cofounder responsible for introducing the policy.

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Alexandra Stanton
Empire Global Ventures
This is a perfect example of selective corporate activism gone awry. As the CEO of a company which subscribes to Conscious Capitalism, we care deeply about the culture we create and who our stakeholders are. However, companies should really be careful about overly controlling these sorts of personal reimbursements, as individual respect is key to workplace satisfaction. The holes in the policy are almost too numerous to list, but for starters: so WeWork will pay for non organic, non-locally sourced vegetables cultivated by BigAg, but not for organically raised, local free range chickens? Additionally, for overweight individuals, many doctors recommend a high protein diet - much tougher to implement on an all-veggie regimen - and isn't that in the best interests of individual health? I would put human health at least on par priority-wise with animal health, if not above.

I would prefer to see WeWork use its corporate heft to support organizations that help low-income folks find work, rather than tell those who work for them what they can and can't consume.

Brian Henry
Webhouse
Promoting healthy lifestyle choices is an important imperative for employers. Encouraging thoughtful choices about diet and nutrition, as well as an active exercise regime, will often energize your corporate culture and support a culture of life/work balance. However, the restriction at WeWorks seems overly broad, if not punitive, to those who have a more diverse diet.
Tim Toterhi
Plotline Leadership
Initially, I thought this was a joke… - a Facebook post that migrated to LinkedIn. It’'s ridiculous... The culinary equivalent of shop owners dedicating premium parking spaces to hybrid vehicles. Like the politically righteous shopkeepers who unintentionally increased the local carbon footprint by forcing SUV drivers to circle endlessly for a parking spot, the folks at WeWork will undoubtedly suffer a host of culinary circumventions that will lower employee engagement and performance.

Maybe I’'m wrong. Maybe they will replace their entire workforce with an army of high-performing vegetarians - I’'m sure they could dig up a study that finds vegans and the like are more productive than meat eaters. But even if it were true, is it really worth it?

Sure, enforcing a two-drink max rule annoys some, but employees understand the risk-mitigating rationale. This move is a little too Orwellian. You can’'t legislate behavior change. You just unleash a host of unintended consequences.

Jennifer Yeko
True Talent PR and WeWork member
While I applaud anything that is good for the environment, it is very preachy. Most people still eat meat in this country. I assume this is a publicity stunt to get attention. Why should someone's personal diet be shunned by an employer? I give this a week before the backlash causes them to reverse this policy.
Nate Masterson
Maple Holistics
The numbers don’'t lie. For many people, the workplace is a space where we spend a great deal of our day. We spend more time at work than we do with our friends and families - by a large margin usually - and we spend another big chunk of our life asleep. That is the reality that we live in, and because of that, I do believe that your employer should have some say regarding your diet, insomuch as company money is concerned. It is in your employer’s best interest to keep your health and wellness levels up. This is conducive to greater productivity, better office relations, and a slew of other benefits inside and outside of the workplace. Healthier and fitter people make for healthier and fitter employees.

Should companies regulate an employee’s diet? Not at all costs, and not in all cases. However, in this case, I feel it is not taking it too far. In fact, it seems to me to be just right. Overstepping bounds would be if management decided that no meat can be eaten in the facility at all, and that employees are banned from bringing that type of food to the office. That may be a debatable move. But nixing meat the way they did is not so debatable, because in the case of WeWork, these meals and events are paid for by the company, and as such the company reserves the right to have a say in what that money is spent on.

Miguel McKelvey
WeWork, Cofounder and Chief Culture Officer
(From Instagram) Absolutely certain this is one of the best things we’ve ever done. The dialogue it’s incited shows we all need to be thinking more critically about the choices we make. Regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of being a meat lover or a vegan, the decisions you make should be mindful and informed. None of us has this all figured out, and mindfulness certainly has no downside. I’m not saying it’s a conclusive solution, but when it comes to meat and plastic and fossil fuel usage I like the term #reducitarian more than any other because it feels open, inclusive, positive, aspirational, and leaves room for respect of each person’s personal choices.

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