Free lunch for Yahoo!

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Whoever said there’s no such thing as a free lunch must not have worked in the Silicon Valley.

During her first couple of weeks as CEO of Yahoo, Marissa Mayer’s first big move came last Friday in the form of free food.

Ms Mayer announced that employees at the Yahoo’s Sunnyvale, California headquarters will now get grub free of charge in the company cafe.

She also announced a few other changes that are coming including a weekly hands-on meeting and a reorganisation of the office space to make it more “collaborative and cool,” according to industry blog, AllThingsD.

Free lunch has become a standard perk in the offices of Silicon Valley heavyweights like Facebook, Twitter and Mayer’s former employer, Google.

For a while, it was just one of the perks that gave Google its reputation as the “best” company culture out there. Forbes names it the number one company to work for in 2007 and 2008. The myriad cafeterias, free on-site haircuts, day care, campus doctor, and speaker series — to name a few of the company’s perks — have even led some to call Googlers spoiled. Ms Mayer clearly wants to bring some of that company loyalty and morale to Yahoo.

While naming Ms Mayer as the top executive has invigorated the company and its investors, employee morale can’t be too high given the rocky year they’ve endured thus far.

Whether or not she can turn around the struggling internet giant, remains to be seen, but Ms Mayer has wasted no time proving that she at least knows how to give flagging employee morale a quick shot in the arm. Maybe the quickest way to the heart of that morale is through the stomach.

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