Buddy lunch has begun.

Monosus has started the "Buddy Lunch" program this year.

Once a month, pairs of company members are announced, and the people paired are treated as "buddies" and go out to lunch together. This was started based on the idea that one-on-one communication is a deeper way to get to know someone.

Also, as we mentioned in our previous article, starting this spring, Monosus has decided to turn activities that help employees make the most of the time they spend at work or with their colleagues into an app ( read more about the app here ), and Buddy Lunch is one of those apps.

This time, I would like to introduce how Buddy Lunch started and what it is like now.

"Buddy Lunch" was started after the company cafeteria was abolished

Before Buddy Lunch started, Monosus had a catering-style company cafeteria for five years. Go, who is also a bartender , would deliver freshly cooked dishes such as hayashi rice and curry in large pots.

While there was a sense of joy in being able to enjoy freshly cooked, piping hot food, some employees complained that over the past five years the same set of members had become involved in eating at the company cafeteria, and that the work of the "company cafeteria committee," which inevitably has to be done between work tasks, such as heating up food and washing used pots, was becoming a burden.

In addition, as the number of employees in the company has increased, the space where people used to eat in the company cafeteria has been turned into work space, and the number of physical places where people can eat leisurely has decreased. Given this trend, it is about time to reconsider the nature of the "company cafeteria."

And Monosus has grown significantly in numbers since five years ago, to nearly 70 people. When each person is concentrating on their work, they spend time without contact, and when they do end up working together, they don't understand each other's positions, making it difficult to join forces... Such a lack of communication has become an issue.

That's why Buddy Lunch was launched as one of the "apps" to deepen communication.

From Brute Force to Buddy

At first, the Buddy Lunch was tentatively named "Round-robin Lunch," and the four people who volunteered to be committee members and the representative, Hayashi, worked out the rules.

The reason for the "round robin" approach was that we had a strong desire for all employees to go out to lunch with each other individually. With nearly 70 staff members, each person would go out with the same combination only once, which would be about 70 times. If we changed the combinations every week, it would take more than a year since there are 52 weeks in a year, but it seems doable... We started discussing whether we should first decide the combinations by drawing lots.

Although everyone wants to have lunch with everyone, if they change the person they have lunch with every week, they may not be able to use the system because they are busy with projects or the week ends without the timing because of business trips or outings. If that happens, the system may not be used at all... There were various opinions expressed among the committee members.

Also, as mentioned above, even if they are members of the same company, if they are in different departments there is no contact and there are some members who have not spoken much. And while some people are proactive in talking to members with whom they have little contact, there are of course some who are not good at it. Taking such things into consideration, we want to create a system that makes it easy for everyone to go.

Buddy Lunch Committee meeting. Hayashi, who is working at Monosus Thailand, also connected via video call and we discussed the rules with the main theme of "how can we encourage people to participate actively?"

In the midst of all this, the word "buddy" came about.
This word is used by pairs who check each other's safety and help each other when diving, for example.

By choosing a "buddy of the month" for a month, even busy people can easily find time to meet up for lunch, and a month also gives people the chance to go to lunch multiple times, which may allow for deeper communication than if the pairings were constantly changing. This is how the "Buddy Lunch" came about.

After much discussion, the basic rules we decided on were as follows:

Basic Rules for Buddy Lunch

• They will be paired one-on-one and spend a month with each other as "Buddy of the Month."
• If two people go out to lunch, the company will cover up to 1,000 yen per person per meal.
• There is no limit to the number of times you can go to lunch during the buddy period, so you can go as many times as you like.

The basic rule is lunch, but tea or dinner is also OK depending on the situation. It is not mandatory to use the system, but for one month, we started with the rule that we should be conscious of communicating with our buddy (say hello when we pass each other) and talk to each other at lunch.

When we first started, we had to visually check the combinations to make sure they wouldn't be the same as the next time, so it took a bit of time, but now one of the committee members uses a system to decide the combinations randomly, taking into account past combination information. This will also eventually become an app (not a company system, but a software app).

Use the system to determine the combination

Use of Buddy Lunch

It has already been six months since the Buddy Lunch initiative began in April. Nearly 80% of the members attended lunch the first time, and since then, 50% to 60% have attended on average. Some groups have even attended lunch up to eight times a month.

We have heard some employees say that being a "Buddy of the Month" has allowed them to discuss work-related issues with a senior colleague whom they have not had much chance to talk to recently, or that because they are not in the office very often due to work commitments, they are able to get to know their coworkers better through buddy lunches, which they say is a meaningful experience.

I take photos of buddy lunches to let people know I went. I also take photos of fun times when I went out for drinks, not just lunch.

I've heard some stories of people who hadn't really talked to each other before hitting it off over lunch, discovering common hobbies, and even starting plans to create a new "app."

When we spoke to the Buddy Lunch Committee members, they said, "It makes me happy to see two people who would never go to lunch together if they weren't buddies, making time out of their busy schedules to go out to lunch," and "Usually we make things that customers need, but it's refreshing to make things that we need ourselves." They said that the committee's activities themselves, like the Buddy Lunches, are also an opportunity to get to know members who they don't usually have contact with.

However, while it is a good thing that communication efforts are being made, there are certainly some confused voices saying that they feel as though communication is being forced upon them.

The rules will likely continue to change depending on the situation and how things develop.

The monthly "Buddy of the Month" announcement is an exciting time, wondering "Who will be next?", but it's also a bit of fun. It's still unknown what changes will come from Buddy Lunch in the future, but I hope to be able to tell you what kind of changes will come about within the company as one-on-one communication spreads!