The Secret to a Happier, More Productive Workplace: Give More, Play More!

Fri, 22 Sep 2017 10:19:37 -0700

Employee engagement is the key to productivity and only 30% of U.S. workers are engaged in their work. Which means 70% are not! Lack of engagement is a destructive and pervasive problem for American business, yet the solution is simple and surprising.

Bread Run: Giving + Play = Healthy Workplace

Bread Run is a live game that combines charitable giving and play to yield a more fit, healthier workplace. Bread Run Corp. is a 501c3 founded by students to help raise funds to fight hunger in local communities. They are warriors in the fight against hunger and homelessness. Their mission is to spread the passion and power of giving through play. They started in universities and have now arrived in corporate America.

Bread Run is a giant live game like capture the flag, where teams of ‘Bakers’ try to steal ‘Bread’ from each other to give to those in need. It is a fast paced fundraising event that is a blast.

Giving on the Job
Today employees seek job security, healthy workplace cultures, opportunities to learn, grow and advance, collaborate and to make an impact. According to Deloitte’s sixth annual Millennial Survey, millennial employees (the majority of the workforce), place a lot of importance on making a difference, both in the workplace and the world. Opportunities to be involved with “good causes” at the local level, provide millennials with a greater feeling of influence.

Science backs up this desire to give. The physiological reward or pleasure response associated with charitable giving is well documented. Using MRI technology, researchers are able to see brain activity when specific acts are taken and in a study on charitable giving when people donated to a cause, the midbrain region of the brain lit up.

Playing on the Job
Doing good and professional growth, however, are not enough to foster health and productivity in the workplace. Teamwork and collaboration...Read More

Dough Blog

Fri, 07 Aug 2015 21:00:00 -0700

Here’s How We Can End Global Hunger in 15 Years

The new goals proposed by the U.N. could easily be achieved.

Last night, 795 million people went to sleep hungry. That’s a larger number than the populations of the U.S. and Europe combined, and the effects of not having enough foo makes hunger (and malnutrition) the No. 1 public health risk worldwide—greater than AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis combined.

In 2000, presidents and prime ministers of the United Nations countries set a goal to cut hunger in half by 2015. We came close but didn’t quite hit the target: Worldwide, 10.9 percent of people are undernourished, down from 18.6 percent in 1990–92, the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization recently reported. Despite falling short, the 193 member states agreed this week to charge forward with an even bigger goal: ending poverty and hunger by 2030. The goal is part of the new post-2015 sustainable development goals that will be considered at the U.N. General Assembly in September.

It may sound like a beauty pageant wish, but it is an entirely achievable goal. Some paths to end hunger are relatively straight, a matter of increased production and ecosystem maintenance; others are more systemic, such as solving ongoing conflict and reshaping cultural ideas regarding gender roles. But with international cooperation and a departure from “business as usual,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva think achieving the goal is possible.

What would it take? Simply put, $160 per year for each person living in extreme poverty. That’s a really...Read More

Bread Run: Let's Dough It

The Secret to a Happier, More Productive Workplace: Give More, Play More!

Dough Blog

Here’s How We Can End Global Hunger in 15 Years