Corporate baristas on the rise
By Jeni Port | theage.com.au | 21 May
The year 1975 has been pinpointed as the fulcrum of major social change in this country. It was the year when the scales were finally tipped - when more coffee was consumed than tea.
Ever since, it has been the right of every worker to subsist on a daily intake of a pale brown, freeze-dried substance to which is added boiling water, and for which there is never enough fresh milk, because Shane from accounting gets there first.
Well, Shane from accounting has met his match.
At the transport safety company ARRB Group Ltd in Vermont South, he can stroll downstairs to the caf, order an espresso - or, if he's feeling particularly in need of a perk-up, a doppio ristretto - from Helen or Blair, the smiling baristas, sit down for a chat with his co-workers, leave his cup to be cleaned and stroll back upstairs to his desk caffeine-primed for the rest of the morning.
And he doesn't have to pay a cent (which always makes an accountant happy).
By employing its own barista, the ARRB Group believes it is giving its workers a congenial, happy working environment.
"We've got separate divisions here - research, technology and consulting - that operate individually, so to get everyone talking together was a major aim," explains Sue Rolland, general manager corporate services.
The ARRB offices are in a very 1970s-designed group of brown brick buildings that run warren-like around a central courtyard, leaving people compartmentalised.
In mid April, the company installed a barista and set down some simple rules for staff: no self-serve, coffee would only be served when the baristas were operating (10am-2pm daily) and coffee could not be taken back to workstations.
Staff were encouraged to go to the caf and talk to a fellow employee they may not have met before, including managers and the boss himself, Gerard Waldron. The idea's success was helped enormously by the fact that Mr Waldron is something of a coffee buff.
"I knew it would fail if it was half-baked," says Mr Waldron. He insisted his baristas Helen Neaylon and Blair Roberts visit his local coffee haunt in Belgrave called The Reel. ARRB now uses the same coffee (Vittoria).
Lavazza Coffee's chief executive, John Russell Storey, says that more and more, baristas, upmarket coffee machines and coffee carts are becoming the norm in the workplace. "Companies are concerned that when people are going out to do a cappuccino run in the morning, they are away for 15 or 20 minutes and that has sparked interest in improving office coffee," he says, but providing free instant coffee or vending machines is no longer good enough. "Do not underestimate people's perception of coffee," he warns.
It is now common for some large law firms and advertising agencies to have baristas on hand for client meetings and staff seminars.
Melbourne law firm Corrs Chambers Westgarth has its own full-time catering service and all food and beverage staff have undertaken barista training.
Leasing an office coffee cart is another growth area. Carts are taking space in foyers across the business end of town in Melbourne and Sydney. It's a win-win situation. The companies receive rent from the carts and save time for their office personnel.
"The cart lives or dies by making and serving coffee quickly," adds Russell Storey.
Wayne Stolle of Coffee Headquarters operates coffee carts at railways stations and university campuses across Melbourne.
A standard coffee cart with machine and grinder can be leased for around $10,000 a year.
A good barista will cost at least $20 an hour. Just as the tea lady perked us up in the 1960s and 1970s, so the barista fulfils a similar job today.
First published by TheAge.com.au on May 21 2008
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