Food Allergies in the Workplace – Not Always What They Seem

Does your employee refuse to sit at the conference table, passing up the doughnuts at the morning status meeting?

Does the new intern always have an excuse not to go out for Friday night beers at the local hangout?

Does your office mate leave the office every time you come back to your desk with a snack?

Did you employee turn down a piece of birthday cake, even though it was his birthday?

If your teammate always declines lunch out with the team, choosing instead to eat a brown bag lunch from home, does that mean she can’t keep up with the work?

Before you label these employees as difficult, unsociable, or “not a team player,” look again. It could be food allergies.

Recent studies show that as many as 15 million Americans have food allergies. Another 2 million suffer from celiac disease, and many more suffer from food intolerances. As food allergies continue to rise, more young adults with food allergies are entering the workforce, and employers should take notice.

According to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology, the principals involved in the management of food allergies are very similar to the principals of food allergy management in schools. But while most schools have been dealing with the issue of food allergies for some time with parents actively advocating for their children, the workplace represents a new challenge. Young adults now need to advocate for themselves, and work environments can vary dramatically depending on the type of work being done.

A typical office environment may have a common area where employees snack, share refrigerators and microwaves, and even share food; a location where a little bit of spilled milk could be of concern to an employee with a milk allergy. That morning status meeting where doughnuts are being passed around the conference table could cause the start of the workday to be very stressful for an employee with allergies to wheat and eggs, or another who suffers from celiac disease.

Food allergy challenges in the workplace aren’t restricted to social events and celebrations. Plane travel, business lunches and dinners with clients, and conferences all require special planning for an employee with food allergies. Even a seemingly simple business-networking event, such as a baseball game where peanuts are thrown around the stadium, can be a challenge for an employee with food allergies.

Food Allergy Awareness Week (May 13-19, 2012) is a great time to assess your own workplace for food safety.

If you are the employee with food allergies:

• It’s up to you to make sure your boss and colleagues understand.
• Let your boss and co-workers know what you are allergic to, how to recognize an allergic reaction, and what they should do in a medical emergency. Make sure they know where you keep your medications, including epinephrine, if appropriate.
• Offer to help plan events that include food, or work with those on the planning committee to make sure they include foods that are safe for you.

If you’re the boss:

• Be an advocate for your employee. Make an effort to reach out to employees with food allergies and understand their needs. Find out what foods need to be avoided.
• If food will be served in the workplace, engage the employee to help identify what foods are safe for them, and how they need to be handled. 
• Accommodate food allergies the same as you would accommodate any other disability. Accommodations may include banning certain foods (such as nuts) from the office, or allowing the employee a dedicated refrigerator or microwave in their own workspace. In extreme cases it may be necessary to assign an employee their own office, rather than a desk in a shared space.
• Work with the employee to develop an action plan for emergencies.

Most importantly, colleagues and bosses alike need to recognize that food allergies are not a choice. All employees should make an effort to ensure that no employee feels left out or isolated due to their food restrictions.

From Machine to Man (or Woman)

Automated Postal Center and new Priority Mail box display (Photo credit: Aranami)

“It was a pleasure to serve you.”

That’s what the final screen read as I completed mailing a package using the self-serve postal machine at the post office.

Serve me? I didn’t feel like the machine had served me in any way. Sure, the machine used a bit of processing power and ink, but serving? Hardly.

And pleasure? Really? Was the machine actually claiming to feel that emotion?

A more appropriate closing message might have been, “Thank you for your business,” or even, “Have a nice day.”

I’m not opposed to automation. I prefer it. Even if the service window had been open, I would have bee-lined to the self-serve machine. I like technology, and use it. At the grocery store I always choose the scan-it-yourself and self-checkout options. I find it faster and more efficient.

I prefer not to have to politely decline the upgrade to priority mail from parcel post; I’ll just push the buttons. But I do so knowing that I am interacting with a machine, and there is no part of that transaction that feels human to me. I am simply not expecting a machine to be “pleased.”

But then there’s Watson, who wowed us all with his Jeopardy performance last year. We laughed at his colloquialisms and his attempts at sounding as “human” possible. Yet, as I watched, I was acutely aware that Watson was indeed a machine.

What about you? Do you expect feelings from a machine? Do you think we will ever interact emotionally with machines the same way we do with humans?

You Have 2.7 Seconds to Reach Your Audience

Descente - 9/365 (Photo credit: Groume)That’s it.

If you’re not hooked by now, you might never be.

The average attention span is 2.7 seconds, roughly 140 characters (sound familiar?) according to Peter Shankman.

According to Statistic Brain, the average attention span in 2012 is 12 seconds (down from 10 seconds in 2000). Are you still reading?

What do you think?

Who Decided That Girls Need Pink Toys? (Or Why Gender Marketing is a Bad Idea)

Pink! (Photo credit: fabrice79)I’m seeing pink.

It’s enough that girls must have pink clothing, pink bedrooms, and glittery pink cell phones. It’s enough that girls are taught to recite “pink” as their favorite color. It’s enough that Barbie’s 3-Story Dream Townhouse and Pop-Up Camper are pink. But Legos? Do we really need to force pink Legos on our girls?

Last week, this blog post entitled OMG! I’m Going to Be a Grandmother and I Hate Gender Marketing, caused quite a stir. The author makes the case that while she expects princesses to be pink, there is no practical reason why a corn popper push toy for a girl needs to be pink, and sold side-by-side with the blue popper for boys. There is no logic for the girl’s parking garage to be pink while the boy’s parking garage is red and yellow. Why can’t girls and boys park their cars in the same garage?

I wondered – do girls really prefer pink? Is there a case for the toy companies to market separate colors for boys and girls? According to this article in Time Science, there is indeed a difference in color preference between genders; women chose the redder shades of blue (those with reddish-purple tones) while men chose the greener shades of blue. But the study found that both genders universally prefer blue.

That’s right, men and women agree on blue.

So when Lego decided they needed to reach what they call “the other 50%” of the world’s children, they did extensive market research. And, according to this article in Jezebel, they found that girls play differently than boys. They found that while boys like to focus on the building and following directions that the girls like to take breaks and start developing story. This resulted in a line of toys for girls branded Lego Friends, with pink and purple packaging. They don’t include directions.

Now you’re probably expecting me to rant about why these toys are a bad idea. But I’ll be honest. I like pink. I like purple. I look at the new Lego Friends line and I am drawn in. The packaging is attractive, I like the colors, and I like the idea of a toy built around a story (I am, after all, a story-teller). I am completely on board with the concept of the new Lego Friends line. As a marketer, I think it’s a brilliant idea. What I don’t like is that they are only for girls. It’s the gender marketing that has me seeing pink. I reject the notion that girls can't follow directions. I reject the notion that boys can't be creative. Must we have toys that are for boys and toys that are for girls?

Gender marketing pigeonholes our children into specific roles and behaviors. Is this what we want?

If we insist that girls need pink toys while the boys play with toys that are blue, green, yellow, and red, how is it possible that we can expect them to aspire to the same jobs? If we continue to expect that girls can’t follow directions to build Legos, how can we expect women to learn the skills to debug computer software? If girls need to park their cars in the pink garage while boys park in the yellow garage, how is it possible that we can expect women to be invited to sit at the same boardroom ta