Laurel implemented DoorDash for Business’ Meal Manager, a centralized platform that automates recurring employee meal programs while giving employees the flexibility to order meals that fit their schedules and dietary needs. Instead of manually coordinating vendors, collecting orders, and troubleshooting last-minute changes, Laurel’s Employee Experience team could manage everything in one place while employees ordered individually from a broad network of restaurants.

Meet Laurel

Laurel is the AI-native work intelligence platform for professional services. Firms use Laurel to automate timekeeping, understand profitability, and measure the ROI of AI investments.

With 200 employees across five hub offices and a remote workforce, Laurel's business is built on one core principle: time is your most valuable resource.

That philosophy extends to how Laurel thinks about employee experience. So when office meal coordination started consuming hours each week for both employees and the Employee Experience team, it became clear the process needed to change.

The Challenge

Before DoorDash for Business, Laurel's Employee Experience team cycled through multiple lunch delivery vendors—none of which could meet the company's needs. The process was a weekly time sink:

• 5 hours per week spent coordinating restaurants, ensuring variety across three offices, and managing dietary restrictions

• 5 hours per week lost by employees with dietary sensitivities who had to coordinate their own meals while colleagues ate together

• Rigid prior-day cutoffs that created waste when plans changed and panic when unexpected guests arrived

• Limited customization that left diet-sensitive employees fending for themselves

• 70% participation rate—a sign that people wanted the benefit, but the execution was falling short

For a company whose product helps clients reclaim billable time, the irony wasn't lost: Laurel's meal program was burning 10+ hours per week across the organization.

"Before DoorDash for Business, our team was spending 5 hours a week coordinating vendors and menus across offices, and our employees with dietary restrictions were losing another 5 hours figuring out their own lunch. For a time intelligence company, that felt painfully ironic."

Reilly, Employee Experience Specialist, Laurel

The Solution

Laurel adopted Meal Manager to give time back to both employees and the Employee Experience team. By automating meal coordination and allowing employees to place individual orders within pre-set budgets and ordering windows, Meal Manager eliminated hours of manual work while making the program more flexible and inclusive. The streamlined experience drove higher participation and a significant increase in office attendance.

Time Reclaimed:

• 5 hours per week returned to the Employee Experience team, now reinvested in strategic initiatives like Laurel's surprise and delight program

• 5 hours per week given back to diet-sensitive employees, who can now order customizable meals alongside their colleagues instead of sourcing lunch independently

Program Expansion:

• With time freed up, Laurel extended meal benefits from 3 required office days to all 5 weekdays—including optional days

• 3x increase in office presence on optional days, as employees were drawn in by reliable, high-quality meal options

Participation & Inclusion:

• Daily lunch participation grew from 70% to 100% of in-office employees

• Employees with allergies and dietary restrictions gained equal access to the program—no more eating separately or spending personal time meal planning

Flexibility:

• DoorDash's network of 500,000+ merchants provides endless variety

• Dedicated support team solves challenges in minutes, not hours

• No more prior-day cutoffs or wasted meals when plans change

"We are a time company, and DoorDash for Business has given me back my most valuable resource: my time. What used to take constant coordination is now seamless with Meal Manager - saving our team time while ensuring everything runs smoothly. Every pain point—wasted food, dietary restrictions, last-minute changes, hours of coordination—is solved."

Reilly, Employee Experience Specialist, Laurel

Beyond In-Office Meals: Remote Employee Engagement

Laurel also uses DoorDash for Business vouchers to support remote employee engagement. While planning an upcoming Chicago offsite, the Employee Experience team wanted to send remote employees a deep-dish pizza experience they could participate in together via Slack.

Instead of manually sourcing and managing gift cards across 30+ cities, Laurel worked with DoorDash for Business to create a custom voucher link.

What could have taken 4–6 hours of manual coordination became a scalable, repeatable engagement program for distributed teams.

“The voucher feature turned what could have been 4 to 6 hours of work into a 30-minute call. Our remote employees loved it, and it’s become a blueprint for how we think about inclusive, remote-friendly engagement.”

Reilly, Employee Experience Specialist, Laurel

Looking Ahead

Laurel now views DoorDash for Business as a strategic partner in employee experience—one that aligns with the company's core value proposition of time intelligence. The team is actively exploring expanded use cases, including catering for offsites and team events, broader voucher programs for remote celebrations, and integration with other employee engagement initiatives.