How Great Food & Personalized Perks Support People Ops with Mel Skochdopole, Parkday

It’s the series finale of Power to the People Ops, and today, we’ve got a real treat. We’re speaking with Mel Skochdopole, co-founder of Parkday—a.k.a. “the Tinder of food.” Using the power of data, Parkday curates personalized workplace meals that are tailored to everyone’s food preferences. As a result, Parkday is saving people ops leaders valuable time and protecting them from the awkward (and potentially damaging) mistake of ordering food someone on their team can’t eat. Meghan and Mel explore how food is a small but powerful way to affect work culture and how people ops products can get personalized perks right.

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Takeaways

• Don’t just add workplace perks—personalize them with product. 

• Food quality can directly affect team productivity and health. 

Things To Listen For

[1:30] Introducing Mel & Parkday’s mission of building data-driven food programs

[2:00] How Parkday personalizes meals, as inspired by the founders’ own food preference journeys 

[4:00] As companies return to the office, food is something that will always be impactful; it unifies teams across departments 

[5:00] The issue for people ops leaders: food is important, but it takes a lot of time and effort to curate the best meals for every person in a company 

[7:00] Good food is a matter of team productivity and health 

[9:30] 85% of people are looking to eat healthier or follow a specific diet today, and that preference is even stronger among young workers  

[12:00] Why Parkday is “the Tinder of food” and how to use it to find your food type (anyone else out there a spicy vegetarian? 🌶)

[15:00] How Parkday found its way by supporting the people ops space 

[18:00] The perfect storm affecting the transition from HR to people ops 

[19:00] What we mean by total compensation and the impact of workplace perks