Cater2.me + Envoy: Technology Solutions for the Flexible Workplace

Over the past couple years, as we’ve connected with companies from all over the country, we’ve talked a lot about the need for flexible work environments. In fact, in a webinar we led back in November 2021, our panelists all agreed that providing flexibility to their workforces was key to bringing their teams back to the office successfully and fostering a productive work environment.

While we’ve experienced a lot of uncertainty over the past couple years, we’re now seeing more and more companies committing to returning to the office in some form, frequently implementing hybrid models to provide the flexibility their team members desire. This new environment presents unique challenges to companies, such as managing variable office headcounts, restricting attendance based on office capacity limits, providing flexible seating arrangements, and administering tailored catering solutions that can accommodate the need for this increased variability.

Group Ordering: Our Flexible Catering Solution

When we launched our Group Ordering platform in April 2020, we prioritized features around flexibility and automation so that companies could use the platform in a number of different ways based on the needs of their particular offices. For example, some of our clients sought to incentivize their teams to come in only 3 days each week by offering a specific meal allowance limited to 3 uses per week. Meanwhile, other companies preferred to provide a full month’s allowance at the start of each month to allow employees with changing shifts and schedules to allocate their food budget even more flexibly. Still, other companies preferred to remove pricing altogether using our Fixed Price program, allowing their team to order meals from a fixed set menu each day.

This flexibility and customization have been key in helping clients create successful programs aligned with their return-to-work strategy.

Leveraging Data and Automation: Workplace Technology Integration

Realizing that workplace automation and flexibility were core to enhancing the client experience, we endeavored to partner with a strong workplace management company that could open up new and exciting features to our clients. This search led us to Envoy, a leading innovator in the workplace management space and a partner with whom we already share many clients. We launched our partnership back in June 2021 and immediately streamlined the way many of our clients manage their workplaces and catering programs.

With Cater2.me + Envoy, we’re able to leverage Envoy’s comprehensive workplace data solutions to bring automation and flexibility to the next level, reducing costs for our clients and saving our points of contact significant time.

Let’s take a look at what exactly this partnership can do for your office.

Enhanced Catering Controls

In an effort to enforce daily attendance limits as companies phase staff back into the office, many companies are asking staff to register for the specific days they’d like to attend. Whether your company tracks attendance using Envoy’s calendar registrations, Envoy Protect, or Envoy Desks, you can now restrict ordering to only those employees who have registered and/or received approval to come into the office on that particular day. This feature can help reduce cost and waste by eliminating unneeded meals while simultaneously driving adoption of your attendance management application.

Hands-Off User Provisioning

As staff join, relocate to other offices, or leave your organization, Cater2.me + Envoy can lighten the burden on your office administrators by ensuring all appropriate staff members are automatically added or removed from your Cater2.me catering programs, eliminating the need for separate invites.

By mapping Envoy location data to your Cater2.me meal groups, Cater2.me can automatically add new team members to the right meal programs when they’re added to Envoy, enabling team members to start placing orders immediately without the need for a separate invitation. We can also automatically remove relocated or inactive members, ensuring – in real-time – that only active members are able to place orders.

Smarter Meal Automation

Drawing on Envoy’s real-time employee and visitor registration data, we’re able to enrich our popular Backup Plan functionality, which allows companies to set up automatic orders of defined quantities of omnivore, vegan, vegetarian, and allergen-friendly meals.

Through our integration, we’re now able to sync order quantities based on a specific day’s attendance. By comparing the number of employees and visitors registered to come into the office with the number of orders already placed on any given day, Cater2.me can automatically order the right number of additional meals to ensure everyone – your staff, your guests, or both – are accounted for without having to worry about overordering and waste. Say goodbye to your responsibility to monitor daily headcounts to ensure accurate and sufficient portioning.

Integrated On-Site Logistics

With companies considering ways to maximize the efficiency and safety of their workplace, many are using hot-desk and flexible desk assignments solutions to adapt their spaces for safety and flexibility. This means that your team members may be sitting in different spaces, on different floors, on different days. Through our integration with Envoy Desks, we’re able to associate employee orders with specific desk locations, ensuring we deliver each team member’s meal to the most convenient meal Pickup Point.

Is Cater2.me + Envoy right for me?

If you have a regularly scheduled catering program in place for your office (or you’re interested in setting one up), this integration could be perfect for your team, particularly if you’re transitioning back to an office setting or need a solution for a flexible workplace.

Implementation is easy and can be done in a matter of minutes. As a Cater2.me client, your dedicated account manager can help with any specifics related to your program’s configuration and introduce you to our dedicated Envoy partners for help setting up an Envoy account if you don’t already have one.

Interested in learning more? Get in touch!