Approximately 30% of the population drinks coffee occasionally, but it seems as though working professionals should start enjoying coffee a little more, especially during important meetings.
According to INC.com, a new study reveals coffee being served at workplace meetings can actually make the entire meeting more productive and efficient.
There has been plenty of research in terms of how coffee improves focus and attentiveness at the individual level, but this groundbreaking study proved that this productive beverage can drastically improve the way a meeting operates.
The study, published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology, analyzed group performance efforts by conducting meeting-like experiments involving around 70 undergraduate participates. Those in the study rated personal and group performance more positively when they were given coffee before a discussion or activity. Coffee served at the meetings actually made the participants more productive and engaged during group talks, while improving their participation levels and giving them a more positive overall feeling about the entire event as a whole.
“If you look at where coffee’s being consumed, a significant amount happens in group settings,” said Rao Unnava, dean of the management school at the University of California, Davis, who wrote the study alongside Vasu Unnava, an adjust assistant professor and Rao’s wife.
The researchers had to make sure they knew exactly why the study participants were more productive and engaged.
“Is it the caffeine in the coffee or the simple act of consuming coffee together that made people feel positive?” recalled Vasu Unnava.
In order to prove why was making the participants more productive, during a second experiment, all participants had a single cup of coffee together before the activities, but some groups got caffeinated coffee, and others got decaffeinated. The groups who had the caffeine rated their own participation and their attitude toward other group members more positively than those who had the decaffeinated coffee — they also expressed more of a willingness to work with the group and had higher levels of alternates, commonly found in studies that took a look at the various benefits of caffeine.
In order to have more engaged, productive, and efficient meetings, it might be time to start thinking about serving more coffee from companies like Velvet Foam at your next meeting.
