When was the last time you saw some employee perks and benefits that didn’t make you go:
Well, same! The reason behind the need for perks is now understood but what isn’t yet – which ones to give and which ones to not.
And before we begin with the list of employee benefits and perks, let’s clarify a few things:
- Ping pong tables are great but no, not great “perks”
- Unlimited vacation is practically useless if you’re gonna be asked 200 questions before you take that leave. (and let’s be honest, how actively do we plan and take those?)
- Employee benefit programs cannot be common across organizations – they are dependent on tons of factors – team size, demographics, nature of work, the way you work (on-site or remote), etc.
20 Employee Perks and Benefits you can try out
1. Working from Anywhere
This is no more a surprise. Employees love the freedom to work from any location. It doesn’t have to be an office or their home necessarily. Offering full-time or hybrid remote work options gives employees greater control over their work-life balance and makes them more satisfied at their workplaces. They don’t have to move away from their family and they get a relaxed atmosphere to give their best.
2. Four-Day Workweek
The concept of a four-day workweek has gained traction in recent years and can be one of the most unique employee benefits. Resulting in promoting better productivity and reducing burnout. This concept was pioneered by Kellogs in 1930. In November 2022, Belgium passed a law introducing the same. It is now being adopted gradually across the world. And guess what, Springworks had also tried this out. After we removed our non-compete policy, we decided to give this a try as well. Due to some circumstances, it didn’t work for us. However, we’re still open to making it work again and we’ll soon be trying again.
3. Wellness Allowance
This is one of the easiest ways to tell your employees, “We care for you”. By providing a stipend for health and wellness activities, such as gym memberships, fitness classes, meditation apps, or even spa treatments. This acts as a motivation for the employees to pursue a path towards fitness and shows a commitment to employees’ physical and mental well-being.
4. Automatic Leave Approvals
While this is often a debatable topic, we use this mechanism first hand and we loved this idea. When a candidate signs up to work with a company, they offer them a fixed number of leaves. But eventually, there’s no point if they need to request for them again and again with no sight of approvals from the manager / HR. And honestly, there is no particular reason for employees to be denied what they were assured while signing the offer letter. They’re adults and they should be trusted with their decisions while taking leaves. Hence, we find auto-approved leaves as the best option for us.
5. Sabbaticals
After a set period of service (e.g., 5 years), you can offer your employees a sabbatical—a long-term paid (or even unpaid) leave. These sabbaticals can be more than a month long and help employees recharge and boost their creativity – with the safety of their job.
6. Mental Health Days
Alongside regular PTO, you can also offer mental health days that employees can use when they need to unwind, or seek counseling, addressing burnout and stress head-on. This can help employees with the time to address their mental wellness challenges actively while also inspiring better productivity for further charged up days.
7. On-Site Childcare or Childcare Stipends
For working parents, access to on-site childcare or financial assistance for daycare can be a real game-changer and often, a dream come true. We’ve heard of so many people quitting their jobs to provide proper care to their children. It doesn’t have to be a choice between this or that anymore. When you include this in your employee perks program, it just makes balancing family and work responsibilities easier.
8. Financial Planning Assistance
This is one of our favourite employee perks ideas. Each employee of yours wants to secure their finances and reduce money matters. However some expert advice can definitely help better here. As not everyone is really great in understanding the nitty-gritties of finance and investments.
Offering access to financial advisors, retirement planning, or workshops on managing personal finances can help them understand these technicalities better and allow employees to be stress free.
9. Student Loan Repayment Assistance
Paying off student loans is definitely a big headache for employees, especially the freshers. Help employees pay off their student loans faster by contributing a monthly / annual amount to their repayments. Now this can be based on your budget according to which you can set a relevant amount as to how much you can contribute as an organization. It’s a meaningful way to support their financial well-being and at the same time, inhibits loyalty and a better relationship between the employer and the employee. .
10. Pet-Friendly Office or Pet Stipends
Leaving pets at home is a painful task :”) Allow employees to bring their pets to the office or provide a stipend to cover pet care costs. It’s a fun perk that makes the workplace feel more relaxed and inclusive. Other employees would also get that “fun office” vibe with the “golden retriever feels” (for real).
11. Professional Development Stipends
There’s no negotiation towards learning and development. I personally feel it should be a mandatory perk in all companies. Offering regular reimbursements for professional development – it can be for taking new courses, attending important conferences, or acquiring new certifications or reading material. If employee retention is good, it is only going to benefit the organization by allowing them to upskill and eventually perform better.
Or, you can also support your employees’ education by reimbursing tuition fees for courses that are relevant to their roles or future career paths.
12. A no-meeting Friday
It’s no secret that employees already hit weekend vibes on a Friday. The work pace goes low and people start focusing on making their weekend plans. The last thing they want to do is do a meeting on that day. Hence, a no-meeting Friday can be a great idea to imply every week / biweekly. They can, of course, sort anything urgent if it comes up. But a general idea would be to prioritize no meetings.
13. Birthday Time Off
It’s all about giving them the time to celebrate themselves as a part of employee perks and benefits. If birthday time offs aren’t possible for you, you can also choose to present them with vouchers or gift cards for their special days.
14. Paid Volunteer Time
Employees often are interested in volunteering for social causes but can’t due to lack of time. As an organization, you and your employees both can benefit from paid volunteer time. This offers employees paid time off to volunteer and bring a sense of community to the table. As an organization, they’ll get to fulfill their corporate social responsibility.
15. Workcation Options
This is one of the best perks at work you can offer to your employees if you want complete utilization of the same. Allow employees to take extended work-from-anywhere trips and reimburse their cost of travel / stays / meals. A change in environment can spur creativity and refresh employees without sacrificing productivity. And moreover, it’ll make employees feel more connected to the organization.
At Springworks, we offer an annual workation bonus of INR 25,000. Our employees have worked from Austin, Himachal, Kerala, from a houseboat, from every unique place possible and they love it.
16. Health Insurance with Mental Health Coverage
Health insurance for spouses and kids is often one of the most common types of employee benefits. Go beyond basic health insurance by offering plans that include mental health services such as therapy, counseling, and stress management programs. We’re in a process to make sure that mental wellness shouldn’t feel like a taboo. This would further ensure employees that their mental challenges aren’t an issue to the organization, but instead the organization would want to help them work through it.
17. Fertility and Adoption Assistance
Assist employees who are starting or growing their families by covering fertility treatments, adoption expenses, or providing paid parental leave for both parents. This shows that the company goes above and beyond to even take care of the families of the employees. Because ultimately it’s all for the family, right?
18. Company-Sponsored Retreats
Take the team on annual or biannual retreats where they can relax, bond, and participate in creative brainstorming sessions. This is even more important for remote / hybrid companies as this gives the whole organization a chance to get together and bond with each other.
Here are some photos from the 4 offsites that we’ve done till now in Bangalore, Jaipur, and Goa.
19. Subscription Services
Offer employees access to subscription services that enhance their work or personal lives. For professional spaces, this can be language learning apps, audiobook platforms, courses, etc. And for personal services this can be spa or wellness services.
20. Personalized Perks
Give employees the option to select personalized perks, such as a subscription to a meal delivery service, home office equipment, or a streaming service. How is it different from other perks? Here they get to choose among a bunch of options, all based on their interests and lifestyle.
Make the best out of these employee perks and benefits
For example, we offer a Lifestyle Spending Account which consists of 3 categories – Meals, OTT platforms, and Health and Fitness. This budget is a total of INR 3,000 per month and employees can choose to spend it on any of the three categories.
Corporate perks at work can be a great way to enhance productivity and help employees build a better connection with their organization – something beyond just give and take procedure. Make the best out of it.
