A recent "food informant" blog post from The Huffington Post gives some insight into Apple culture and how Apple feed and water their people - its not the norm as illustrated:
You can read the whole piece if you wish - if the link doesnt work paste the following into your browser:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/09/27/apple-cafeteria-caffe-macs_n_983053.html#s374554&title=Aaron_Lefkove_New
But is their success a function of such treatment or a luxury their success affords them?
Does it take amazing leadership to create and stick to this or is the problem that that thought even enters your head because we are conditioned by norm or average practices?
Is it a great case study for Contract Caterers as they try and encourage their clients to deliver better for their teams or would even raising such an example assure them of being shown the door?
Apple deliver on service and have no recruitment or retention issues, how big a part does this treatment play? How does it support the culture and social aspect of work given I bet most team members don't leave to grab a sandwich, soup or drink from outside?
Whether you think its an extravagance or an essential - I think a simple test is would you like to work there? I guess my answer is Yes it would be cool just like their brand and would make previous or future employers look that bit less attractive.
Just read this article you might find interesting.
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2011/10/engage_employees_using_custome.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+%28HBR.org%29
This reminded me when I moved from a luxurious 5* hotel in Knightsbridge to another 5* hotel nearby Covent Garden (London). Although the amount of rooms was comparable and the staff/guest ratio just slightly higher in the luxury hotel, the luxury hotel had a big canteen with salad fridge, dessert fridge, ice cream for lunch, soup of the day and a choice of vegetables and main course. The seconfd hotel had a small canteen with tables that reminded me of my days at school and with only one main course a few veg and some ham and cheese for a sandwich.
I believe you should treat your staff in the same way your want them to treat your guests. You want them to be proud and as the second post says: engaged. Surveys take too much time to be analyzed and very often are seen by line staff as a complete waste of time. Personally an indicator of how succesfull your hotel is, is the number of employees that want to try and stay at the hotel, that want to book a table for dinner or afternoon tea (or else) that are proud to take their parents and friends there. And in this case again there was a net difference between one hotel and the other.
To reply to the original poster: yes probaly the Apple bar is too high and some of the employees might even fancy some junk food in the canteen from time to time, but lets never forget that frontline staff is what makes a company great, not the people at HQ.