The firm has doubled the price of evening meals in staff restaurants by scrapping the 50 per cent subsidy that the firm provided for those working late.
An announcement on the Clifford Chance intranet page “London Today” explained: “There will be an annual price rise in the restaurant, Deli, Budgie [bar] and vending machines of 6 per cent. The price of food served in the restaurant in the evenings will now be the same as during the day. These changes are against a background of rising food prices.”
A senior Clifford Chance partner said: “The restaurant is not a profit centre. Whilst I regret that we have to increase these costs, the firm still continues to subsidise food to the tune of several million pounds.”
In addition to the increase in food prices, the opening hours of the “made-to-order sandwich bar” deli have been shortened. Having previously been open and staffed all-day from breakfast until dinner, it will now only “be open 11:30am-3:00pm, which are the busiest hours of use”, stated the announcement.
Instead, a “self-service breakfast bagel bar will open in the restaurant” and “there will be an extensive selection of sandwiches and snacks in the Deli’s ‘grab and go’ section”.
Finally, the restaurant will now be shut at weekends “as part of streamlining the service we offer”. But the announcement offers alternatives on weekends: "In addition to the 5th floor vending facilities, there are also many food outlets open in Jubilee Place at weekends. Fee-earners working at weekends will be able to order food to their desks from a selection of light meals.”
A spokesperson for Clifford Chance said: “Following the firm's annual review of its catering services we have made some small changes. Overall, our aim has been to maintain our provision of 24 hour availability of a good choice of high quality, good value, food and beverages for our employees."
This latest efficiency drive at Clifford Chance follows London managing partner Jeremy Sandelson recently berating staff for abuse of taxi privileges, against a background of rising taxi costs (as reported on TheLawyer.com 26 February).
Clifford Chance announced its associate pay-rises yesterday (8 May), which ranged from between around 4 and 4.88 per cent at most levels.
Food, glorious food.
From: Fagin
Re the previous post (11.19), I think you'll find CC actually does lovely biscuits for its internal meetings, which even appear to have been baked on the premises. And at Christmas they also do very tasty mince pies and yule logs. That' s better home cooking than I get at home!
CC canteen food - please don't supersize me
From: Anonymous
I used to work at CC and the canteen food was mostly overcooked cardboard - they should pay people to eat it!
This latest move follows earlier bold strategic initiatives in 2002 such as stopping biscuits for internal meetings. If people are giving hours of their life to help the firm by working late, can't the firm even afford to pay for a taxi to take them home?
CC is out of touch with reality and will have to crawl out of a deep hole later if it does not start treating people (including clients) much better now.
Still good value
From: Anonymous
Well, even with the 6 per cent increase I can get an excellent meal here for less than it would cost me to make it at home. (It would be nice to get a 6 per cent pay rise though...)
Records Costs
From: Edna Welthorpe
Re the anonymous comment about the cost of records staff, if the person posting understood the risks to any firm not having a good records team / policy in place, they'd realise it's a small price to pay.
Inspirational
From: Rich Getricher
yup, the managing partner only talks to us to tell us off - either too many missing timesheets, too many taxis, now we are eating too much food. Really feel valued.
Bin the records staff, not the sandwiches
From: Anonymous
Or perhaps we could save money on all these pointless managers in Business Operations and Records who are getting good salaries for what they do - but for what? Do we really need up to 20 records staff and two supervisers and a manager who actually doesn't seem to do anything?
From what I hear and see they don't have much to do and with the intro of file and go, etc, here is a good focus for us to cut more costs, not our sandwiches.
Concentrate on the £££s
From: Anonymous
... not the pennies. I have never seen such a shocking waste of IT budget as at CC - perhaps we should look at the waste of millions of pounds of failed IT iniatives rather than the pennies saved in cutting back on sandwiches!
It won't matter anyway!
From: Anonymous
This is part of Clifford Chance's drive to reduce costs, which include outsourcing their complete London and European IT Department and secretarial work to India in the next 12 months all for progress and costs saving - even though CC make more money in profit every year...
Am I surprised? Not really: the senior IT management in the company would not know an IT strategy if it landed on their heads and are being led by a bumbling idiot.
What about the support staff ...
From: Anonymous
Are they really going to up salaries by 6% to cover the increase in lunch costs ... I very much doubt it!
Regional firm in West Yorkshire
From: John
I work in a 230 staff firm. I can take as many clients, contacts and prospective clients as I want for lunch, in some of Yorkshires most exclusive places. The firm pays. None of this magic circle canteen crap...
Enjoy clients
From: I love CC
CC clients should negotiate what associates can eat ;-)
What about introducing a charge for toilet paper ?
well 'duhh'!
From: Anonymous
90 per cent of evening meals are charged back to clients, as pointed out below ... so I'm sure all the CC associates are shrugging and saying so what?
Eveyone enjoys a laugh at the top dog's expense, but this, and the taxi subsidiary story, are just attempts to make a funny front-page story out of essentially nothing. (I did like that headline though -- CC Rides The Bus -- ha ha!)
Tightening belts?
From: Puh-leez
I thought the associate salaries were just increased...? I wonder if they had to cut back on food subsidies for all the staff to pad the associate paychecks...
nice perk if you can get it
From: hungry
Dear 'Anonymous' below: have you never eaten in the canteen after working flat out all day and then going to the gym?
And some firms have free food every night, irrespective of whether you're working for a client or not.
cake
From: Anonymous
let them eat cake
Scran
From: Anonymous
Annoying for those at CC whose lunches are going to cost more - but food is still available all day and probably still cheaper than leaving the office.
For evening meals, I would think that if people don't need to work late, they would rather go home and eat rather than hang out in the canteen, and if they do have to work, it's (presumably?) recharged to the relevant client, so evening increases won't affect them.
Of course, the increase in price might be due to people "lining their stomach cheaply or on the client before going for a booze-up" rather than using the evening canteen for what it's intended for...
pork pies
From: underpaid
Fair enough - I have on many an occasion lined my stomach cheaply or for free on the client before meeting my mates for a booze-up.