Employee Assistance Program

Company: The Palace Manila

Title: Improved Employee Meals

Company Background:

The Palace Manila is a group of Bars/Clubs and Outlets situated in Uptown, BGC. It is comprised of five
outlets: The Island, Yes Please, BAD, Revel and XYLO.

Current Population: 400

Segregation/Distribution of Population

Rank and File (Utility, Bouncers, Servers, Cashiers, Receptionists, Bartenders) – 60%

Officers & Supervisors (Marketing, Admin, Design, Engineering, Security, Operations) – 25%

Managers – 10%

Directors (Partners and Owners) – 5%

Population by Age Range

18 to 25: 53%

26 to 34: 25%

35 to 45: 17%

45 and up: 5%

Population by Educational Background

Did not finish high school: 30%

Technical/Vocational: 40%

College Level/Graduates: 20%

Post-graduate: 10%

Background on the program

The Employee Meals program has been in existence for 4 to 5 years already. However, during it’s
inception, it almost was scrapped because food was almost never consumed.

Rationale of the Program

 - Biggest concern was Attendance, as almost all outlets would have problems with attendance
(absences and tardiness).
- Despite proper schedule management and information, problem still persists;
- Upon investigation (as staff would be required to submit an Incident Report explaining their
absences or lates), major reason for the attendance issues was: MONEY, or lack thereof.
- First step done was to make pay/salary paid out almost every week
- Still, this did not help. Other reasons for attendance was that – they had no money to buy food,
and also this would make them go late/overbreak as the nearest available store for food is a few
hundred meters away;

Challenges Facing the Company

These are some of the challenges faced by the organization, that led to the implementation of the
assistance program:

Work Issues

- Problems with performance (absences, tardiness, overbreaks)

- Sluggish with work
- Theft (by eating leftover food by customers)

Family Issues (secondary)

- Financial problems

Phase 1.0 – First Employee Meal Program

What happened?

- It did not work at the first few years (1 to 2), as food cooked was almost never finished by staff,
due to the following reasons:
o Kitchen was too far from the outlets (there was only 1 kitchen serving the employee
meals to all outlets);
o Food was not prepared well

Phase 2.0 – Improved Meals Program

What was done to make it better?

- Food is now served from respective kitchens of the outlets prepared by the Kitchen Staff of
respective outlets
- Food budget has been increased (from 25 pesos per person to 50 pesos)
- Meal plan has been made better:
o Vegetables only on Mondays to Thursdays;
o Meat dishes on Fridays to Sundays
-