Lovewell's logic: Celebrating the value of benefits

What’s the quirkiest benefit you offer to your employees? Maybe you allow them to bring their pets to work, provide free drinks on a Friday or offer some unusual staff outings or trips?

Earlier this week, Glassdoor published details of 20 organisations on the UK’s Top Quirky Employee Perks and Benefits 2017 list. This included:

• Financial services organisation TransferWise, which has a built-in office sauna for all employees to use.
• Investment management firm Winton Capital Management, which employs a food evangelist to ensure staff have access to advice on the best food to suit their needs.
• Buzzfeed UK, which hosts weekly live music performances in its office.
• Software firm Cloudreach, which takes employees on secret holidays across Europe and North America.
• IT organisation Phoenix Partnership, which offers staff annual sailing trips to global locations.

Of course, while such initiatives are undoubtedly attention grabbing, they may not fit with every organisation’s culture, budget or strategy. And, as any organisation that offers such perks will tell you, there is little point in doing so unless they also achieve the desired results.

A well-thought through benefits scheme which is tailored to support an organisation’s culture, workforce, and business strategy can be an extremely effective business tool.

On Friday 9 June, the industry will gather to celebrate the success of schemes that fit this bill at this year’s Employee Benefits Awards and Summer Party, one of my favourite days in the industry calendar. We’ll be putting on our party clothes and celebrating the success of our winners’ and finalists’ reward and benefits initiatives.

I’m looking forward to seeing many of you there. If you’re unable to attend, you can follow all of the action from the day, including details of the winners as they are announced on Twitter using #EBAwards17.

Debbie Lovewell-TuckEditorTweet: @DebbieLovewell