Employee satisfaction is of utmost importance to employers, especially these days. With companies constantly looking for ways to show their appreciation to their employees, meal card benefits are emerging as one of the most common methods to do so. Offering employees meal card benefits is a great idea, not just because they are beneficial to them but also because this will promote a healthy lifestyle and work-life balance among the employees. Overall, they help in empowering employees and cultivating a positive and happy workplace culture.
Key takeaways- Meal card benefits are a major incentive that employers can offer to employees. They are advantageous in various ways, not just to employees but also to the employer. Their main advantage is ensuring that employees have access to nutritious and tasty food at their workplace. Meal card benefits can be a great addition to the perks an organisation offers to its employees.
What are meal card benefits?
Simply put, meal cards are electronic cards that allow employees to buy food at a minimum rate or sometimes even for free. These cards are loaded with a prefixed amount of balance. Companies often collaborate with meal card providers to set up this facility for their employees. With meal cards, employers can also provide corporate discounts at restaurants, grocery stores and cafes. Meal cards are very convenient to use.
Fact- Meal cards can be prepaid as well as postpaid!
How do meal cards work?
Meal cards are exactly like debit cards, but for food and beverages. The preloaded balance in them can be used by employees to purchase foods or beverages. This is a newer version of paper vouchers for food. It is hassle free and easier to use as paper vouchers can be misplaced or damaged accidentally.
Employers decide the amount that needs to be added to a meal card. They also decide the frequency of recharging the card. This can be based on various factors. The most common one is an employee’s seniority.
What are the potential benefits of meal cards in the workplace?
There are a lot of advantages to offering meal card benefits to employees at their workplace. Meal card benefits are advantageous to employers as well. Let’s look at some of them.
Meal card benefits provide employees access to healthy food
With meal cards, employees can eat healthy food instead of junk or fast food which are usually the preferred options because of their price point. Meal cards provide employees a variety of options to choose from, including nutritious, filling and healthy meals. This will further encourage employees to take care of their health and well being.
Meal cards can help save time
Not everyone has the time to wake up extra early and make and pack themselves lunch. Due to this, they often show up to the office without lunch. Eating outside everyday could really add to one’s expenses and is not the most feasible option. If employees have meal cards, they need not worry about their expenses as much since the discounts and coupons available make a huge difference to the original price of the meals they might be choosing to have, thus leading to major savings.
Providing meal cards can also benefit employers
Providing meal cards to employees can be very beneficial to employers as well. It works as a great incentive and can help attract and retain talented employees.
Meal cards lead to increased productivity
Since meal card benefits give employees access to food easily and at subsidized rates, they will not have to go hungry and when the belly is full the mind always works smoothly. This can lead to higher productivity rates and is beneficial to not just to the employee but also to the employer.
Meal cards can lead to exemption from food tax
The use of meal cards is regulated by the Income Tax Act. Goods and Service Tax (GST) is not levied on meals that are bought using meal cards. This act also allows for a tax free meal allowance of up to INR 50 per meal. The total exemption per day is INR 150. If an individual were to save this amount of money everyday, they would be saving 2200 inr by the end of the month.
Ease of budgeting and financial management
Food card allot a fixed allowance which can be spent on food and beverages. This can help employees to keep track of their expenses and avoid overspending. This promotes responsible financial management and helps employees make informed choices regarding their meal selections
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Employees have a huge variety of options to choose from
Meal cards provide employees with a huge selection of foods that they can choose from/ restaurants and cafes that they can eat at. Meal cards are often even applicable at select grocery stores that the company has partnered up with to provide employees these benefits. Therefore, employees can try out different things everyday.
Before implementing meal cards in a workplace, it is important to consider a few things.
Let’s take a look at what these are.
Selecting the right meal card provider
This is the most important step. Choosing the right meal card provider is one way to guarantee that a meal card benefits program sees success in the workplace. Employers should evaluate potential providers based on factors such as the card acceptance network, reliability, customer service, and reporting capabilities. It is also important to choose a meal card provider that is affiliated with a large number of restaurants, cafes and grocery stores to offer employees a variety.
Monitoring and managing meal card expenses
Employers need to put an effective and efficient system in place to manage and budget for employee meal card expenses. This can include setting limits on how much one employee can spend, tracking their expenses and analyzing the patterns.
Legal considerations
When implementing any program, employers must take into consideration the legal formalities that come with it. These rules and regulations vary from place to place and should be paid close attention to. Employers should comply with applicable labor laws, tax regulations, and employment standards to ensure a smooth running program.
Taking employee feedback
Any program that is introduced for the benefit of the employees is useless if the employees are not benefitting from it Therefore, it is important that employers take feedback and constructive criticism from their employees from time to time. This will also enable them to make changes wherever required and judge how successful the program is.
Meal card benefits are a great perk to offer to your employees, especially if you are trying to build a positive and motivating work environment and culture. Meal cards are beneficial to employers just as much as to the employees. A well-designed and well-implemented meal card program can make employees feel very special and looked after by their employer. All of this ultimately leads to higher employee retention rates, success, loyalty, productivity and most importantly, progress!
