Flavors Through Generations

Taste is a completely unique sense. It brings out memories, and when we experience reality with it in the company of loved ones, we are healthier. This year at the Humanites Institute we decided to make taste, in the broad sense of the word, the leitmotif of the 14th edition of the “HumanBE – Two Hours for Family | for Human” campaign.

REGISTER A COMPANY!

Every year the motto is different, in 2025 it reads: “Flavors through Generations”. Don’t delay and register your business!

The “HumanBE – Two Hours for the Family/Human” campaign was created in 2012 in response to global challenges looked at by the Humanites Institute: the epidemic of loneliness and the crisis of connectedness that has been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic; the atomization of individuals and deepening anxieties related to the economy and the geopolitical situation; and changes in the global labor market related to exponential technological advances, among other things. The aim of the campaign is to serve as a reminder of the tremendous role that human ties play both inside and outside the work environment. Our message is to stop the artificial division of these two spheres.

SEE WHAT WE HAVE PREPARED FOR YOU THIS YEAR:

• Inspirations and ideas for activities that you can implement in your company -> Inspirations
• Ready-to-use texts about the action for communication inside and outside the company, graphics for your social media and intranets, as well as Press Release -> Downloadable Materials
• How to celebrate HumanBE /2h4family – download presentation with practices of other companies
• Conditions of participation -> How to join?
• Did you know that the action can be included in the non-financial report, read: social impact, CSRD and ESG
• The 2024 edition of ASK ME Cards is available in our store. The 2025 edition is coming soon!

FLAVORS ACROSS GENERATIONS

Taste is an extraordinary sense. Just by crushing a raspberry or a strawberry on your tongue, you can feel summer in all your nerve endings. To Polish millenials, the taste of tangerines will always be associated with Christmas, and one only has to remember what happened to Proust when he bit into one small Magdalene to understand – taste is power.

Since the taste of a cookie can drive a man to write seven volumes of a masterpiece of world literature (this is, of course, “In Search of Lost Time”), it’s scary to think what else this sense is capable of. In our opinion – it is as perfect as the dough for grandma’s dumplings an intergenerational binder. And not just in culinary terms – every life, every success, every failure has its own distinct flavor. This year we encourage you to taste our action!

Taste, or the power of shared meals

As Dr. Katarzyna Wolnicka writes for the National Center for Nutrition Education, children who eat meals together with their parents find it easier to maintain a healthy weight, harder to have vitamin and mineral deficiencies, and will have healthier eating habits in the future. On the other hand, psychodietitian Klaudia Stawowska on Dietly’s blog cites a study according to which children who eat meals together with their caregivers have… a wider vocabulary!

In Poland, we can breathe a sigh of relief – according to a survey of 2,000 people commissioned by Glovo in 2023: 90% of us eat meals together with our families at least once a week, and 46% do so daily. The increased pace of life has not made us stop feasts together! We save time by giving up… cooking. More than 60 percent of us order takeout food at least once a month.

However, a study conducted by researchers from the University of Oxford, published in 2017 in Adaptive Human Behavior and Physiology, shows the issue in a broader context. While the results indicate that eating in company promotes well-being and strengthens social bonds, we are increasingly choosing a taste for isolation. The average person eats 10 out of 21 meals per week in solitude. More than ⅔ of those surveyed have NEVER eaten anything together with any of their neighbors. ⅕ of respondents have not met at a shared table with their parents for months. As many as 21 percent of those who share an apartment with someone generally do not eat meals together with household members.

Once you have answered the above question, don’t hesitate to join our action. “HumanBE – Two Hours for Family | for Human” is an international movement for proximity, changing work culture and lifestyles. Over the past few years, 3,000 companies from 59 countries around the world have joined it.

Photo: Conference Conference “Loneliness, Labor Market, Innovation: People and Business in the Age of AI” with the HumanBE Action Celebration Awards Gala, October 2024.

Partners of action #2025, thank you! YOU are the biggest change!

PATRON MEDIALNY

COMPETITION PARTNERS
                                

We believe that through the social change we inspire, through Employers, we are able to fight the phenomenon of loneliness, which, according to many studies, leads to a deterioration of quality of life, many diseases (including depression) and, unfortunately, often to premature death*.

We believe that from good interpersonal relationships, i.e. those in which we are accepted and loved, comes much happiness and a sense of meaning.

We observe how our action over the years strengthens families and teams in companies and has a positive impact on people’s mental and emotional health. It also influences the organizational culture in companies and makes it more family-oriented and pro-human.

The #2h4family #2h4human has been running continuously since 2012, and so far more than 3 million people from more than 3000 companies, from 59 countries, have participated.

We wish you many moments spent together nurturing relationships, preferably intergenerational!

See previous editions: 2024, 2023, 2022 ,2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017

Do you have questions? Do you want to share something with us?
Feel free to contact us:

Adriana Proszak

mail: adriana.proszak(at)humanites.pl

We would like to thank the winner of the 2025 motto contest, Mr. Krzysztof Stachel, for creating this beautiful sentence.

Great Social Change in work culture and lifestyle. How to join the #2h4family action?

The main condition for joining the #Human BE – #2h4family program is to register your company through: form. The second condition is to inspire Female and Male Employees, to take care of their ties with their loved ones. That they spend/spend these “symbolic two hours” together with their family, friends for a good conversation, preferably inter-generational!

How to join the #2h4family action? It’s very easy!

Join:

• FIRST – Inform the Board of Directors, Departments: HR, CSR, ESG and register your company by May 15 , by completing out this form.

• SECOND – On May 15, encourage Employees to spend time together with their families. Inspire them: take ready-to-use materials from our website, you can find them here.

and additionally:

• THIRD – give the people in your Team two hours off to spend time with their families. This is not obligatory, but more than 90% of participating companies do it. We suggest doing it around May 15 on International Day of Families. While the choice is yours, equally good dates are June 1, September 1 and others. You can also arrange with each person separately when they will receive their #2h4family.

• FOURTH – Celebrate around May 15!  Create rituals of closeness to be closer at home and at work! Prepare team-building activities for your Team, design them so that they are inclusive for Employee Families as well. You will find inspiration and ready-made ideas in the awarded realizations, Book of good practices, inspirations for companies, inspirations for employees
  

And that’s the END!

The rest of the program points are optional, though highly encouraged! 

• PO FIFTH – encourage your Team to participate in our competitions with prizes. We will publish information about them soon!

• SIXTH – give us a report on how your Company celebrated 2h4family. We will award the most interesting realizations! See last year’s winners of the competition for the implementation of the Two Hours for Family | for Human campaign: here.

• SEVENTH – invite partners, contractors foreign branches of the company to join the campaign. In this way you will become an Ambassador of #2h4family!

2h4family is also an annual meeting with business. Employers – leaders and pioneers of the Great Social Change of work culture and lifestyle – are gathered around the “Two Hours for Family | for Human” campaign. See how we celebrated the successes of #2h4family #2h4human among business.

Information materials:

Wellbeing conference for business 2022
Wellbeing conference for business 2023 

Wellbeing conference for business 2024.

There are plenty of reasons for a company to join the action. Here are some of the most important:

• Loneliness STOP. The main goal of the #HumanBE campaign is to counter the epidemic of loneliness that is taking its toll on societies, families, individuals and businesses. Participation in #2h4family can be the first brick a company will add to building a sustainable, pro-human and pro-family work environment.

• In recent years, through regulations and directives, the European Union has emphasized that it has very specific expectations of business people, in whose hands lie the fate of employees, societies and the environment. These are about the added value generated by a company in three areas: environment (E for environmental), society (S for social) and corporate governance (G for governance). In short: ESG. A company’s participation in #HumanBE is a response to the “S” component, which affects a company’s non-financial rating.

• START Efficiency. We don’t like this argument very much, but it is a proven fact in numerous studies. Male and female employees who feel that they are more than just cogs in the machinery for their company work better, more efficiently and bond with their employer for the long term. Is that what you’re all about? Join us!

How to celebrate?

Or is it ridiculous and unkind to fight for the symbolic “two hours for the family” in a world where pandemics, economic crisis, wars and, last but not least, new technologies, every now and then turn the table at which we sit? Nothing could be further from the truth. There is something in which artificial intelligence will not be matched by humans any time soon. It’s empathy and the ability to bond.

Every year the Two Hours for Family | for Man campaign needs a new motto precisely because there is no single scheme that can express the complexity of human relationships. We have already described them with dreams, passions, movies, sports or travel. This year it was the turn of flavors.

Flavors through the generations

“Through the stomach to the heart” – proclaims a Polish saying, and we must admit that there is something to it. This is characteristic of Poland in particular – the language of culinary unites generations. Pierogi with cabbage from grandma or yeast cake from a friendly elderly neighbor from the first floor. The lollipop that the saleswoman in the store gives as a free gift to the puffy child of a regular customer. The nineteenth addition of dinner at a partner’s family home. Tastes are about feelings, and feelings are about tastes. At least in some cases.

Here are some ideas on how you can initiate valuable time with loved ones, starting with flavors:

• Prepare and eat something together! So simple, so obvious!
• What flavor are you today? Sour lemon, sweet caramel, or maybe umami like a cherry tomato? Ask your loved ones this question. Ask them to explain why they feel that way today.
• Sit all of you together and try to recall the earliest flavors you remember as a child. Was it the tenderness of a madeleine, like Proust’s, or was it the bitterness of a potted flower you threw all your two teeth at in infancy?
• Choose one “victim” (can be a volunteer), blindfold her and give her a taste of various delicacies. Have her not only guess what she just ate, but also tell you what her most vivid memory associated with that taste is.

How to start a good conversation? 

Talk about your dreams and passions:

• What superpower would you like to wake up with tomorrow?
• Do you like to eat in company or rather in solitude? Do you know why?
• Do you have your favorite family dish? What is it and how did it become one?
• Do you know a grandparent’s childhood dream? Or any other close elderly person?
• What did your grandmother or an older acquaintance collect when she was in elementary school? Or do you collect something?
• What do you think the phrase “taste of life” means? Do you know people who “taste life”? Or maybe you do it yourself? Tell us about it.
• A joyful party for many people, or a quiet conversation until the morning with a person close to you? Justify your choice.
• What will you ask the goldfish to do? And your mother or another person close to you?

ASK ME – created by the Humanites Institute, this game contains cards with sets of questions that will help you get to know your family or group of friends better. Do you think you know everything about them? And do you know what cartoon character is the most inspiring to your Mom, what it means to your Dad to be a happy and fulfilled person, what life failure turned out well for your Grandmother? Reach for the ASK ME cards and discover the secrets of the people you think you know very well!

Inspirations

What should we prepare? Where to look for ideas for the #HumanBE #2h4family campaign?

Below we present inspiration, ideas and refer you to supporting materials. And we also suggest contests that we organize every year for you and your Employees.

• Every year, we announce 2 contests in May. For next year’s motto: for Employees, and a contest for action implementation: for HR.
  Texts and graphics for communication: download ready-made graphics from us.

This year’s motto: “Flavors across generations.”

It’s best to think together about what you associate the word “taste” with. Tastes of childhood, taste of life, Zbigniew Herbert’s “A Question of Taste”? Brainstorm, keeping in mind the nature of the Teams in your Company, and you will certainly come up with something creative. Think about how to involve the families and loved ones of your Teams. You can also use our ideas:

• prepare and eat a company meal together! Think about whether and if so, how this experience enriched you?
• Organize a cooking workshop for male and female employees and their loved ones. Let the theme be “taste”. The rest depends on your team: maybe “flavors of childhood” or “taste of Provence”?
• Prepare a field game for male and female employees with their families. Differentiating pears and apples by taste can be one of many tasty challenges,
• Too complicated? A photo contest for the best photo with a “taste” theme should be “easier to handle” 😉
  ANSWER. We used to have a thematically similar motto. Be inspired by the Employer Reports of the 6th edition of the action and information on the 6th edition of the action.

And remember – THE SKY (and budget) IS THE LIMIT!

Not sure what activities to plan for this year?

We have gathered for you PRACTICES and IDEAS of OTHER COMPANIES!

see what other employers (small, medium and large companies) organized as part of the HumanBE action in previous years: download the presentation

What have others said about taste? Some inspirational quotes:

For your activities: SoMe, mailings, for contests and other activities:

1. “[In taste] are the fibers of the soul and the gristle of the conscience”. – Zbigniew Herbert, “The Power of Taste”
2. “Food is a symbol of love when words are insufficient.” – Alan D. Wolfelt
3. “You learn a great deal about a person when you share a meal with them.” – Anthony Bourdain
4. “Food connects people on many different levels. It is nourishment of the soul and body; it is true love.” – Giada De Laurentiis
5. “Experience is not what happens to you, but what you do in the face of what happens to you.” – Aldous Huxley
6. “Family dinner: a great way to bond with your kids, meal by meal” – Laurie David
7. “The tradition of the Sunday feast accomplishes more than just feeding us. It nourishes us.” – Chef John Besh
8. “Growing up, I learned important life lessons at the dinner table.” – Chef John Besh
9. “If the house is the body, the table is the heart, the beating center.” – Shauna Niequist
10. “Strange how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everyone.” – Samuel Pepys
11. “I cook and I really believe in family dinners, I think it’s a good time to bring the family together.” – Gwyneth Paltrow
12. “Let things taste what they are.” – Alice Waters
13. “If you want to make a really good friend, go to their house and have dinner with them…people who give you their food will also give you their heart. – Cesar Chavez
14. “People are different. It is not things, objects, tastes, soups that divide them, but beliefs. It is beliefs that unite them, that build a community or a barricade.” – Maciej Bennewicz
15. “Everything I have understood in life, I have understood only because I love” Leo Tolstoy
16. “If I am a proponent of anything, it is to move. As far as possible, as much as possible. Across an ocean or just across a river. Get into someone’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everyone.” – Anthony Bourdain
17. “Eating is not just eating energy. It’s an experience.” – Guy Fieri
18. “Travel is a new experience that can break you out of your daily routine and create memories with loved ones.” – Brian Chesky
19. “To know a person, you have to become his traveling companion” – Turkish proverb
20. “Since the evening meal has been a shared experience in virtually all societies for a very long time, the fact that it has declined markedly in our country in a single generation is remarkable evidence of how rapidly our social ties have changed – Robert D. Putnam
21. “The decline of the family meal is just one of many ominous indicators. Among families with children between the ages of 8 and 17, in just 20 years there has been a decline of about 20-30% in the fraction of people who spend vacations together as a family, watch TV together, attend religious services and “just sit and talk.”-Robert D. Putnam

Inspirations from previous editions

The most common activity chosen by companies as part of the Two Hours for Family / Human action are contests with attractive prizes. For example:

• during the edition whose motto was “Our Pets and Moments Together,” the company held a competition for children of female employees for an artwork depicting an animal pet,
• During the edition whose motto was “Generational Movie Club,” another company organized an art competition for children to create an image of their favorite movie hero, and a family competition was encouraged for dishes inspired by favorite movies!
• During the edition under the slogan: “Small and large family travels” – Those who designed their own postcards from their favorite places in Poland were rewarded.
• The prizes in the contests were company gadgets, and if the budget allowed – gifts that encouraged joint family activities – tickets to the aquapark, cinema or amusement park. A good gift is our ASK ME cards.

We also have something especially for your Team!

You may, of course, enter the program with caution. We understand and respect that! However, we encourage you to do it with a nudge. Every year we reward the team that has put the most heart into the action! More information from last year can be found here: “Awards Gala of the 2023 Action Implementation Contest”. And we will announce a new contest in May 2025.

Do you like it?

You can recommend us further. Encourage your friends from other companies to join #2h4family, send a Letter to Employers. Introduce your decision-makers to the possibility of becoming our Partner: cooperation options.

Become an Ambassador of #2h4family #2h4human – cooperation offer and information on how to join in English.

Please contact us by email: adriana.proszak(at)humanites.pl

Do you need hard data to convince decision-makers at your company that it’s worth looking at the mental well-being of the people you employ? Here they are:

• 54 percent of male and female employees are considering changing jobs in the near future.
• Only 20 percent of male and female employees think their supervisor is a role model.
• During the pandemic, probably as a result of the pro-worker changes forced by its emergence, the negative assessment of well-being in the work environment dropped from 63 percent to 36 percent.

ASK ME cards, or the great power of good questions

Ask Me cards are a brilliant in their simplicity tool that has one lofty goal: to become an excuse for a valuable conversation. Every year, on the occasion of successive editions of #HumanBE #2h4family, we prepare a new edition, always revolving around one theme – in 2025 it will be flavors. But if you prefer conversations that start from the theme of dreams, movies, passions or travel – cards from previous editions can also be purchased!

ASK ME cards contain unconventional questions that you may never have asked your Family and Friends. Meanwhile, the answers may surprise you a lot, you will hear many family stories you didn’t know until now. This is a tool for intergenerational integration at home and at work!

• What memories do you have of your first ever private party?
• What is your favorite song? And your grandmother’s song?
• What was the name of the first pet you took care of?

These are just examples of questions that teach curiosity, cooperation, listening. You will find more in the ASK ME decks, which are not only a great way to spend time together, but also an ideal gift for your Female and Male Employees.

Why should you gift ASK Me cards?

• because it’s a great way to thank your company’s employees for their commitment and work, 
• because it’s a gift that will benefit the whole family of your employee(s),
• because the game facilitates integration and brings a smile to your face,
• because the cards are a great idea for a meeting or a company integration trip
• is an interesting gift for your partners and customers.

How many pieces do I need?

We encourage you to order cards of several – a dozen pieces for your company to give as gifts to your employees. Some companies buy cards for all employees. 

English edition / Language versions 

The cards come in an English edition. Give them to your English-speaking employees, offer the game to your company’s foreign branch, or use them to communicate in English or teach English to your family.

Buy ASK ME cards -> ASK ME CARDS

Watch the movie how to play:

Your company and our program – together we counteract loneliness!

• Did you know that in the report “The Global Risks Report 2019” – World Economic Forum has identified loneliness as one of the biggest threats to people and the world, next to climate catastrophe?
• For “modern man, in his emotional and spiritual dimensions, two phenomena are currently crucial: the crisis of relationships and feelings of loneliness, and the threat to mental health” – wrote Zofia Dzik, president and founder of the Humanites Institute and originator of the #2h4family #2h4human campaign on the ThinkTank Portal.
• Through the “Two Hours for Family/Human” program and participation in the discourse on ties, inspiring your people to take care of relationships, have good conversations with loved ones – you can counter this phenomenon in your company and its social environment.

Downloadable materials

By going to #2h4family, you have access to ready-made graphics and texts for communication with employees and outside the company: for the media and the company’s contractors. We are keeping our fingers crossed for your celebration of the #HumanBE Two Hours for Family, for Man campaign this year! 🙂

Texts for communication!

Letter content that will be useful to you in internal and external communication:

Download Letter to Employers

Download the proposal – Letter to Employees

Ready graphics:

Baner  – 3840×2160: download file
Baner – 2000×2000: download file 
Baner – 1800×600: download file
Baner – 1700×1100: download file
Baner – 1600×800: download file 
Baner – 1526×500: download file
Poster: download file

Finished texts for communication and graphics coming soon!

OTHER Ideas, INSPIRATIONS, COMPETITIONS:

• Every year we provide you with ideas for companies and for employees, read the “Inspirations” and “How to Celebrate“ tabs
• We invite you and your employees to COMPETITIONS. There are competitions for HR: “competition for the implementation of the action” and for employees: for the motto of the action in 2025. We will announce the contests in May!
• How are other companies doing in preparing actions? See here.

You will soon find press releases about the #2h4family 2025 edition here. In the meantime, read our latest Press Material from the #2h4family recap, from the October 10, 2024 Conference.

Did you like our campaign?

Join the ranks of our Ambassadors and Partners – welcome!

• Become an Ambassador of the action – HumanBE, 2h4Family, Global Social Movement

If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!

Action Coordinator:

Adriana Proszak

mail: adriana.proszak(at)humanites.pl

The Two Hours for Family | Human movement is not the only venture of the Humanites Institute? Among our activities, you will also find an unconventional conference for women and business leaders, “Cohesive Leadership. Man and Technology.” Last year’s was devoted to quantum technologies and the issue of humanity. Want to know more? Download the report of the 9th Conference “Cohesive Leadership. Man and Technology”.