While the traditional, bread and butter employee benefits will remain as important as ever, there’s an increasing need for employers to keep up-to-date with the ever changing needs of employees and the evolving lifestyles of varying demographics.
The biggest employers are stepping up and thinking outside the box when it comes to their employee benefits packages and it won’t be long before other employers follow.
Here are a few employee benefits that the big employers are offering that you may not have thought of before.
Paid Babysitters
Microsoft and PayPal have both rolled out this benefit to help employees who are struggling to find a way to find balance, particularly during school holidays.
Employees no longer have to worry about losing out on pay by cutting their hours, using annual leave or paying for babysitters.
Making childcare easier and better financially for employees has long since been at the core of employee benefits. However, since the removal of childcare vouchers to new applicants, it’s now up to employers to find new ways to ensure that childcare no longer affects a parent’s career, social life or bank balance.
Student loan reimbursement and help with education
Companies like Burger King now offer student loan reimbursements as an employee benefit to help recent graduates and attract younger, talented employees.
Companies like Starbucks and Amazon offer to cover anywhere upwards of 95% of tuition fees towards degrees, certificates and diplomas for employees looking to further their career.
Offering support in any form for education for employees is becoming a standard and is becoming more and more expected from employees. With rapid changes in technology and advancements in all fields of work and study, its more important than ever to update skills and progress, if only to keep up and maintain a desirable skillset.
4-day work week
The 4-day work week debate isn’t leaving any time soon and even presidents and political figures are beginning to champion the introduction of either a 4-day working week or a 6-hour day in order to improve work-life balance.
Microsoft Japan trialled the 4-day work week and found a 40% increase in sales with a 92% approval rate from employees, all while reducing running costs.
While some companies are clearly considering the 4-day work week as a potentially successful new employee benefit, with growing popularity among senior politicians we could see the introduction of more work-life balance practices of a similar nature that are mandatory or at least highly encouraged for all businesses.
Egg Freezing
Egg freezing, IVF treatment and surrogacy and adoption support services are becoming a key benefit offered by companies such as JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs.
This comes as more benefits involving childcare and work-life balance are increasing in popularity.
More employers are moving towards helping employees prioritise the things that really matter in life such as family, while giving employees the opportunity to progress their careers at the same time. The less sacrifice employees have to make the better.
Pawternity Benefits
We’ve left potentially the best (at least the most interesting!) till last with this one.
Multinational brewery Brewdog offer a week of paid leave for employees who’ve recently adopted a dog, and many other companies offer the same too.
Some companies even offer pet bereavement leave too!
Regardless of these fancy new innovative benefits, it remains as important as ever to have good financial wellbeing, health and wellbeing and lifestyle benefits in place to ensure you’re not left behind by competing recruiters!