4 Exciting Ideas for Employee Perks
In the dot com/bomb heyday, kooky perks became the icon of much
that was wrong with start-ups, as they blew through investment
money and got little to nothing in return. And that is unfortunate.
When competition for talent is tight and so is money, being smart
about how you show appreciation for employees can be a great way to
retain people. Here are some of the more innovative and interesting
perks companies are using:
Concierge, Please
S.C. Johnson offers employees a
concierge service that can take care of tasks from picking
up dry cleaning to returning library books. Sound over the top?
Hardly. Consider that the more running around people must do in
their lives, the less time they can spend at the office. How much
would it cost to hire additional people to cover the lost time?
Probably plenty.
Bonus by Co-Worker
Some companies
let employees determine bonus levels for each other. For
example, San Francisco-based online labor marketplace Coffee &
Power gives its 15 workers 1,200 stock options to award to
colleagues:
"It lets me reward people that management may not always
recognize," says Becky Neil, who works in marketing and product
management. "This person who has a big title-maybe he didn't
actually contribute that much."
There are potential drawbacks. People might start trading favors
with each other. However, if the awards are made anonymously, then
there is less pressure to trade information about the amounts. The
big gain is that such a plan helps level the playing field and lets
the people who actually see how work gets done reward those who do
it, which should improve morale.
Flexible Advancement
At one point in its history, management consulting firm Deloitte
found it was losing talented female employees because a rigid
corporate ladder meant everyone had to move in lock step. So when
conditions changed, people could either go along or find another
job. But losing experienced people and recruiting new ones had a
heavy cost. So
Deloitte moved to a lattice structure in which people
could, in conjunction with their managers, "dial up" or "dial down"
responsibilities, move to new roles, and otherwise create a
work-life balance that made sense. Moving sideways is just as
possible as moving up, and a pay cut may or may not be involved.
But why lose people you really want if you don't have to?
No Set Vacation Days
Sound a little bit like something only a "new age" company would
do? Turns out not
bothering to count vacation days is something more
businesses are doing, including Netflix and... IBM. Yes, even one
of the oldest and most productive companies in the world has found
that trusting employees to act like adults can work. (Assuming you
hire responsible people, and if not, why aren't you?) Netflix
doesn't even track how many days people are out of the office. Of
course, you have to measure productivity and ensure that necessary
work is getting done. But if it is, can you imagine how much more
productivity you would get by giving up on time
sheets?