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Types of employee benefits and perks.
Offering employees a strong benefits package has its advantages. Here is a list of perks you can adopt for your business to help you attract, hire, and retain top talent.
Great employee benefit programs attract the best talent.
Tech companies are well-known for offering some of the best employee benefits programs out there. They recognize that to attract and retain top talent, especially in their hyper-competitive industry, they must create an environment where people want to work, grow, and stay. Achieving that goal often means offering a significant and creative benefits package.
Tech companies offer great salaries, their benefits packages are generous, and they provide great things on their campuses (like wellness programs). The objective of this strategy is to develop a culture of work that can enable employees to work hard, long hours needed to drive the innovative spirit of the company. The competitive edge of any tech company is its ability patent and leverage new technologies. This often falls on teams having to work unorthodox work schedules. To offset this, companies like Facebook must ensure that their employee benefits are known for enabling high employee retention and engagement rates. Some of the best of all Facebook employee benefits are listed below:
- An extensive healthcare plan with low co-pays
- Facebook employee health benefits include dental and vision coverage
- 16 weeks of paid maternity/paternity leave is available
- 21 vacation days, 11 fully paid holidays and unlimited sick days are available
- 50% 401(k) match on up to 7% of the employee’s salary
- Free lunch and snacks
- Employee discounts on travel, electronics, restaurants, hotel stays, automobiles, movie tickets, and more1
In addition to insurance, 401(k)s, wellness programs, and other perks, many tech companies (along with lots of companies in other industries) are also offering remote working options for their employees.
Small-business employee benefits.
Owning a small business is a tad different from running a large tech company like Facebook. With the budgets large tech companies have, they can afford to offer extensive benefits packages. And most small businesses cannot offer the breadth and depth of the benefits packages that are offered at large companies.
But they can be creative and offer things outside the norm, things that can set them apart and impress potential employees. While health insurance, paid vacations, and paid sick days are the most common employee benefits offered by small businesses, it is the extra things that you can offer that often make the difference.
- Life insurance: Life insurance is very affordable, and it is a welcome perk. Additionally, life insurance is great for a small-business owner because it allows you to insure key people, and it can also be used as a basis to pay out a partner in a buy-sell agreement.
- Disability insurance: This replaces a portion of an employee’s income when the employee can’t work because of an illness or disability. Disability insurance provides wage replacement benefits that on average can cover up to 60% of their earnings.2
- Retirement plans: Offering a quality retirement plan is another way to attract and retain quality employees. Keeping good employees lowers turnover rates and helps your business run more efficiently. Group coverage plans allow employers to provide affordable health insurance for their employees, while increasing employee retention and talent acquisition.
- Wellness programs: Gym memberships are quite affordable, especially for a group, and as a bonus they often can help reduce your healthcare premiums. Similarly, you might consider giving staff trips to a spa, or bringing in a massage therapist or yoga instructor on a regular basis.
- Remote working: This offers your employees the freedom and flexibility to balance their work and life. It saves on gas and travel expenses and increases productivity and retention. Another benefit of working remotely for employees is that they can work from anywhere. If you have a good internet connection, you can work from any location in the world.2
- Flextime: Here is an almost free perk that you can give your team. Allowing people creativity with their schedules, or even allowing them to job-share, is an easy way to be a great employer.
- Bonuses: As a best practice, having a scheduled and predictable incentive plan is smart. The main reason for bonuses is to motivate people to excel, but it’s equally important to reward them for doing so. A good bonus plan can be a recruiting tool, as attracting top talent is tougher than ever.
- Employee discounts: If you are in retail of some sort, or in the food and hospitality industry, giving employee discounts to your staff makes them feel special and like valued members of the team.
- Commuting help: Free parking, being bike friendly, and the like is becoming more and more popular (and easy to do.)
- Creative ideas: One of the best parts of running a small business is that you can be creative, and that certainly should extend to perks for the staff. What about:
- Stocking the kitchen: No, you likely cannot afford to feed people lunch every day as Google can, but you can stock the kitchen and break room with snacks.
- Sending them to a game or show, etc.: Buy season tickets to the local sports team and divvy the tickets up among team members. Send them to a concert or other local event. What about a season ski pass at a local slope?
- Offering house cleaning: As a reward for hard work, arrange to have a house cleaner sent to top employees' homes so they can enjoy their downtime chore-free.
- Creating a cozy place to work: Studies show that open spaces—painted in comfortable, friendly colors, and decorated with couches and the like—not only make people more relaxed but make them more creative, too.
- Family friendly: Again, here is a perk that costs you nothing yet yields big benefits. Being pet and kid friendly is an easy way to endear yourself to your staff. By the same token, maternity and paternity leave (even unpaid) is a pretty easy way to boost your benefits package.
- Time off: Taking another cue from the big tech employee benefits playbook, what about offering people time off to volunteer, or building some three-day weekends into your scheduling? What about giving people their birthdays off or summer and/or winter Fridays?
The bottom line is that small businesses need to do whatever they can these days to compete and to attract and retain top talent. Offering a broad, creative benefits package is a big part of that.
Related Articles
1”Facebook Employee Benefits and Perks—Complete Guide,” Facebook Employee Benefits Details
2“What Is Disability Insurance, and Should You Offer It to Employees?” Justworks, October 11, 2019. Justworks.com
3”20 Advantages of Remote Working for Employees and Employers,” Article by Lumapps, Lumapps.com
This article is for informational purposes only. The ideas, opinions and concepts expressed here should not be construed as specific advice. You should consult your professional business advisors regarding your particular situation.