Consulting Journal: Style - Office entertaining

Style: Office entertaining

by David Blakey

When you offer refreshments in your office, you should be well-organized.

[Monday 28 April 2003]

If you meet your clients at their premises, you may be offered a cup of coffee. You may not

If you meet your clients at your premises, then you should cetainly offer them refreshments. The old-fashioned way to do this was to take your clients to the meeting room and then get some junior member of your staff to take their orders and to deliver the refreshments. This is no longer the way to do it. You can have a refreshments area within your meeting room - rather like a bar - or you can have a refreshments room that they can collect what they want from - rather like a kitchen - before they go to the meeting room.

If you use a separate room, then first take your clients to the meeting room and allow them to leave their briefcases and coats. Then go to the refreshments room to collect food and drink. Make sure that the route back from the refreshments room to the meeting room has no obstacles: your clients may have both hands full.

Whether you use a separate room or an area within your meeting room, check the following.

Beverages

Coffee and tea

Have pots of coffee and tea available. A cafetiere - or plunger - is a good choice. You could also have a coffee maker, either as an alternative or, preferably, as an addition to a pot of coffee, but some of these are messy and fiddly.

Do not have one of those machines that dispenses instant coffee and hot water.

Do not have flasks that people have to pump coffee or tea from or urns with a tap on them.

Milk and cream

It can be very wasteful to have milk and cream in little jugs. It does not look good to have them served in cardboard containers. There are cheap and well-designed containers that you can buy.

Sugar can be in containers that look like normal sugar bowls and have separate lids that you can use for storing them.

Juices and water

Have juices and water available in a refrigerator. If you use a separate refreshments room, have glasses in the meeting room, so that your clients can take the unopened bottles back with them.

A good choice of juices includes orange juice, tomato juice, and apple juice. They should be fresh juices, without added sugar.

You can also offer ‘minerals’, as they are called in Ulster. Do not have just one brand of cola, as people who drink cola really do have strong preferences. You can also have lemonade. Have sugar-free ‘diet’ varieties available.

The one exception to having a range of different brands is if your client owns or markets some of those brands. In that case, make sure that you have their brands available. If the only brand of lemonade that you can find is a rival brand, then do not stock it. But do not remove rival brands if you have the client's brand in stock: do not hide the Pepsi if you are entertaining people from Coca-Cola, but make sure that you do have Coke.

Instead of coffee, some people prefer soft drinks that contain caffeine. Have a selection of these. Do not stock ‘sports water’ or other drinks of that kind.

Have water available in bottles. Stock sparkling water if you wish.

All these drinks should be in individual bottles, so that people can take them to the meeting room still sealed.

Consider the problems raised by obesity, such as type 2 diabetes, and encourage people to have juice or water.

Alcohol

The general rule for having alcohol in the office is: don't. Do not offer alcoholic drinks during client meetings.

Food

Let's use the term ‘finger foods’, because that is what the food should be: items that can be picked up using fingers, that are each a single mouthful. Apply one of the firmest rules of etiquette: if food is raised to the mouth, none of that food should return to the plate.

Sandwiches

Following this rule, sandwiches should be cut small. They should be served in the meeting room room. Sandwiches are appropriate for meetings at any time.

For meat eaters, chicken sandwiches are good. For people who are lactose-tolerant, cheese is good. Have another kind available, such as tomato or cucumber.

Biscuits

Biscuits should also be served in the meeting room. Plain biscuits are best, so a selection of wafer biscuits, digestive biscuits, and Nice biscuits is good. Avoid any kind of biscuit with chocolate.

Cheese and fruit

Cheese and fruit can be useful. If you are going to have one, have both. Again, they should be served in the meeting room.

The same rule of etiquette applies. Cut everything into bite-sized pieces. You can even manage this with some soft cheeses, provided that you cut them up while your clients are choosing their beverages.

If you have ever checked on what does not get eaten, one of the common items is large slices of melon. Many people like to eat melon, but they do not want to have to spear it with a fork and then cut it.

Avoid anything that can create a mess. So avoid oranges. Whole bananas are good. Apples should be served already sliced, as should any pip fruit. Berries are a good choice.

Other points

Here are some other points to consider.

Avoid anything that makes a noise. That includes American potato chips/British crisps, and some biscuits.

Avoid anything that smells. Avoid spices, especially garlic. Avoid fish.

Avoid anything that makes the refreshments seem like a meal, such as small pastries.

Serving

You will need plates and glasses and cups in the meeting room. You may also need knives. You will need forks if you are serving cheese or fruit.

You do not need cloth napkins, but you should get good quality paper napkins, rather than flimsy serviettes.

You need some way to dispose of wet rubbish, such as tea-bags, if you use them.

Summary

Like many other things, entertaining in your offices is something that you will improve with practice. When you start to do it, it will actually help if you have a debriefing meeting after each client meeting to discuss what went well and what you should improve.

In your entertaining, you should be aiming for two objectives: making a good impression on your guests; and keeping costs and work to a minimum. You can only achieve both if your entertaining is organized well.

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