In an environment where reward and benefits budgets are likely to have shrunk, employers can comfort themselves with the fact some employees may find workplace perks that blossom in the most unlikely of places
Dr Terence Kealey from Buckingham University, for instance, finds curvy female students an attractive element of his total reward package.
In a light-hearted, albeit rather frank, article penned for the Times Higher Education magazine, Dr Kealey said female students who flaunt their curves are a perk of the job and should be enjoyed.
The article read: "Most male lecturers know that, most years, there will be a girl in class who flashes her admiration and who asks for advice on essays. What to do? Enjoy her! She's a perk."
Referring to the novels Middlemarch by George Eliot and The History Man by Malcolm Bradbury, Dr Kealey said: "She doesn't yet know that you are only Casaubon to her Dorothea, Howard Kirk to her Felicity Phee, and she will flaunt you her curves.
"Which you should admire daily to spice up your sex, nightly, with the wife. As in Stringfellows, you should look but not touch."
Although Kealey's appreciation for perky perks didn't result in any monetary expense on the part of the university, it did have to shoulder the burden of the subsequent public outrage.
Olivia Bailey, women's officer at the National Union of Students, said: "Regardless of whether this was an attempt at humour, it is completely unacceptable for someone in Terence Kealey's position to compare a lecture theatre to a lap-dancing club, and I expect many women studying at Buckingham University will be feeling extremely angry and insulted at these comments."
Maybe he should have kept his thoughts to himself.