by Overhead Watch Expert | Oct 10, 2018 | Blog, OverHeadWatch.com | 0 comments
If your employees are happy thanks to great work perks, you’ll never have to worry about losing them to another company.
Perks supplement your employees’ salaries and other benefits to make working at your company a more enjoyable experience. By providing great work perks, your company can attract higher quality talent and be more competitive in salary negotiations as a result. Great work perks are a win-win.
But which perks do employees love the most? Which perks are the easiest for your company to provide? What perks do employees expect as standard, and which will surprise them?
In this article, we’ll answer these questions and show you a few ideas for great work perks to implement at your company.
Education
Your employees probably already have an education. But there’s always room for more. Offering discounts or fully paid education at a local university is an excellent perk which pays off for your organization immediately.
No matter the class, your employees will become enriched and more capable when they take classes. If your company is willing to pay for employees to take work-related classes, you’ll see an immediate return on your investment after every class.
The way that your company implements this perk is critical. Some companies go as far as allowing their employees to leave work whenever they need to attend class. Other companies allow for employees to do their classwork while at the office.
Likewise, some companies require that the classes are credit-bearing and put toward a certain degree. Others have no such requirements, which makes the education perk more recreational than professional. The choice is yours.
You may also want to cover online educational programs with any education perks.
Discount Programs
The most common and most basic perk program offers employees discounts with local businesses or national chains. Typically, employees opt-in, and receive some special ID card which lets them get a discount when they go to a participating business.
Discount programs are great because they let your employee remember what your company is doing for them every time they buy a product. They’ll appreciate the extra weight in their wallets, too.
Most discount programs offer a modest discount, but if your business can negotiate a discount greater than 10%, you’ll have an exceptional discount program. The more businesses your company can offer a discount for, the more useful these perks will be to your employees.
Snacks and Meals
What’s better than a free lunch? As far as perks go, not much.
Feeding your employees with snacks and the occasional luncheon is a great way to win their loyalty. The way to your employees’ hearts is through their stomachs.
You can also use the perk of free meals as a chance to talk shop at a time when your employees might otherwise be off-task. Lunch-and-learn events bring your team together while also providing your company with a valuable educational opportunity.
Providing an abundance of snacks is also a great way of winning your employees’ loyalty, though you’ll have to beware. Snacks are a great perk, but it can be a bit distracting to listen to a coworker chomping on popcorn while you’re trying to do serious work.
You should also take care to offer healthy snacks and meals. By offering your employees food, you’re taking on at least a little responsibility for their health. Don’t let them down by providing junk food when they’re on the clock.
Gyms or Gym Memberships
Gym memberships are a great perk because they keep your employees healthy. While some businesses offer this perk as part of their discount program, other companies build a gym at their offices.
There are advantages to each approach. If your company hands out gym memberships to employees, you’ll likely get a good rate from the gym that you partner with.
On the other hand, while you may need to spend money to maintain the gym equipment, providing your employees with a gym on-site gives them another incentive to stick around.
Furthermore, providing a gym at your office helps employees integrate your company into their lives, which lets them be more efficient with their use of time. You will need to make sure that your office has the appropriate facilities, like showers, before offering a gym perk.
Childcare Programs
While expensive, one of the best perks that businesses offer is free childcare.
If your business offers free childcare, your employees will have a much easier day because they won’t have to make a separate stop to drop off and pick up their child from daycare. Likewise, they’ll be a bit less harried if incidents occur because they’re closer to their child.
Offering childcare programs also incentivize your employees to think very carefully about leaving your company. childcare is extremely expensive, and children grow to like the environment where they receive care.
Nonetheless, childcare programs are a significant investment, so make your choice regarding this perk carefully.
Meditation Sessions
Mindfulness meditation is very popular these days, and it’s also a great perk because it’s inexpensive and improves the performance of your employees.
By providing meditation sessions with the help of a guru or guide tape, your employees will reduce their levels of stress, clear their heads, and become refreshed. Meditation will also increase the creativity of your employees not to mention their interpersonal skills.
To get your employees started on meditation as a perk, the only thing necessary is to identify the best kind for your company. For high-stress environments, the clinically proven mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) program is a good place to start.
Dry Cleaning
Offering free dry cleaning to your employees makes their lives easier and helps them to look fresh when they meet with your clients.
The logistics of dry cleaning as a perk varies. Employees might bring their dirty laundry to the office, where there is a central pickup location. Alternatively, employees could leave their laundry at home and have it picked up by a laundry van.
The way your company decides to implement this perk can make a big difference. It isn’t worth providing free dry cleaning if your employees are massively inconvenienced by participating. Poll your employees and see how they would prefer to receive this perk before proceeding.
Retaining Employees
These perks are more than enough to get your company started with offering perk programs. Before you do, there’s just one more consideration: retention.
Offering perks leads to better employee retention, but you need to make sure that your most valuable perks, like education, go to your most valuable employees. Likewise, your most valuable perks need to go to the employees who will stick around.
Many companies address this issue by making perks graded so that longtime employees have the best set of perks and new employees have to build their way up.
No matter what you choose, your employees will be pleased when you tell them about the new perks program.
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