Practice what you preach

In restaurant industry, staff get free food and free accommodation, this is the general trend around. But what food the staff get is a tricky subject, especially if what they look for is quite different than what the restaurant generally prepares for the customers. I hear that some of the vegetarian restaurants explicitly get/sponsor non-veg food for their staff (at least) weekly once, to keep them satisfied and motivated. I am certainly not criticizing them, but at Carrots from day one we don't allow any animal ingredients in our kitchen, because for us the principles that we follow is not just for the business purposes.

Couple of days ago one of the senior members of Carrots kitchen team came to me and asked "Sir, everyday we consume Soy Milk for tea, that comes to around 5 thousand expenditure per month just for that. Many of the staff are not vegan, and occasionally consume non-vegan food outside anyway, so how does it matter really? Can we start getting 'regular' milk and save some costs?"

When it comes to using organic rice for the staff instead of buying a separate 'staff rice' or when it comes to the usage of expensive organic dal, rajma, channa etc. for the staff meal cooking, we don't differentiate between the customers and the staff. We don't restrict them from liberally using veggies in their sabzis, eating fruits etc. (although we request them to judiciously use this freedom and not misuse) I am sure some of the staff find it amusing (maybe stupid too?!) but some of them clearly respect the management for treating them like equals. Some of them have even realized that they don’t like outside food anymore, and have started eating more veggies, salads also.

The above "proposal" came purely out of good intention i.e. to reduce our monthly expenses. It is lovely to have such team, no doubt. While at many places employees see how to extract more and more from the management, Carrots is one of the few places where the staff think in the best interest of overall organization on numerous occasions and go extra miles without much hesitation – its like a one big family. I thought for a while if I should (again) explain all the reasons behind, but then I decided to keep it short this time – I just smiled and replied "Its okay, continue with it, you will understand someday (I hope)".