Imagine you’re a HR manager at a fast-growing start-up in Silicon Valley. You need to attract top talent to keep up with your company’s rate of growth but you’re surrounded by other fast-growing start-ups, tech giants and companies with worldwide reputations who can offer your candidates the same or more than what you can – what do you do?
You need to think outside the box, away from just salary. What can you offer them? What most companies do in this situation is provide an exceptional employee benefits package alongside a working environment or perks that meet employees wants and needs in the modern workplace.
Remote WorkingThis can work great for virtually any company but it’s particularly effective for those who are based in a highly competitive geographical location or those based somewhere with high living costs like London for example.
Ask yourself, do you really need your entire workforce in the office every day? You might already offer remote working opportunities for some employees, but you might benefit from allowing more to work remotely.
Furthermore, if you’re going to offer this as a perk to potential candidates, you need to demonstrate that it’s something you actively do.
Work-life balance was recently shown to be one of the most popular perks with employees in the UK. It’s becoming more and more of a priority for employees and can be a great way to attract talented employees for companies in highly competitive areas.
Parental Leave and Family HelpOffering help to those with families or those who are planning for one can set your company apart and be a deciding factor in a candidate’s decision to join your company over another. Facebook changed the game when it comes to parental leave. After Facebook began offering four months of paid parental leave at 100% pay for employees, other top employers followed suit. Twitter offer 20 weeks of paid parental leave. The market leader is without doubt Netflix that offer a year’s leave at 100% pay.
Some companies also offer to pay for family healthcare, which in itself can be a huge draw for talented candidates, but on top of extended parental leave can be a huge deciding factor.
Put yourself in that position. Would you choose one company over another if it offered much better parental leave and family healthcare even if the other company offered a higher salary?
Time off for birthdays or volunteering and charity fundraisingThese are small perks that can add up to round off a benefits package that sends out a strong message about how much you value your employees. It’s a great way to build a good relationship with your current employees, attract new ones and boost your CSR efforts.
Sometimes it’s the little things that make a big difference. Perks like ‘Bring Your Pet to Work Day’ or subsidised travel to and from the workplace can all add up and set you apart from other employers. That’s before you get into perks that can make your employees’ pay cheque go further than it would at other companies.
Listen to your employeesTop companies like Facebook, Apple and Google often hold talks and forums between CEO’s and senior members and employees in which employees can voice their concerns and provide feedback on their experience working with the company.
Facebook implemented a caregiving leave policy based on an employee’s feedback during a forum with Mark Zuckerberg. An employee stood up and asked what leave they could get as they were looking after a family member who had fallen ill at the time.
Google have regular internal surveys and have launched programmes and initiatives off the back of the results. They launched the ‘Optimise Your Career’ programme after finding through the survey that employees weren’t aware of what career progression opportunities were available to them.
So, when it comes to building a perks and benefits package that sets you apart from your competitors, it’s not only important to think outside the box but to also listen to your current employees. Not only will your benefits package attract top talent but it will be a massive factor in retaining them too!
