Aligning your employee benefits with your company’s purpose, values and brand is a great way to engage your employees and strengthen those company values.
Engaging your employees
There’s a good chance your employees have been drawn to your business due to its purpose and values in the first place. This is particularly true for large, reputable organisations, however the same applies for smaller businesses too.
For example, if you work at Pets at Home you probably like animals, right?
So, Pets at Home employees would probably respond well to discounted pet insurance or a ‘bring your pet to work’ policy.
Sounds like a no-brainer, right? Offering perks that fit with your purpose and values will automatically suit your employees and take-up should be high. The benefits of doing this go even further than your employees.
Strengthening your core message and values
Aligning your perks offering with your core message and values is a great way to strengthen those values and set an example.
For example, companies like Andrex who push a sustainability message might benefit from offering a cycle-to-work scheme or a car leasing scheme on eco-friendly vehicles.
This message can then be used from a PR point-of-view to strengthen their sustainability message.
A company that does this could even take it one step further by calculating the amount of Co2 emissions they’ve saved through employees that have enrolled on these schemes.
Get Creative
Yes, you could just offer a cycle-to-work scheme to push a sustainability or health and fitness message, but the more creative with the perks you offer, the better.
Airbnb offer their employees a $2,000 travel voucher every year to spend at Airbnb listed properties. Brewdog, who’s logo features a puppy, offer their employees a week off when they get a new dog called ‘paw-ternity leave’.
Be unique – Offer your employees something different and stand out from your competitors. When recruiting and retaining employees, you’re competing with all companies not just necessarily those in your industry. Offer them something they couldn’t get elsewhere!
Become a more desirable employer – The uniqueness of your perks offering will set you aside as a fun, creative, forward-thinking business that will be more attractive to potential new employees.
Incorporate your product or service – Like Airbnb offering employees travel expenses to use at their listed properties, find a way to incorporate your product or service offering into your benefits package. How you do this depends totally on your business and industry.
Examples of companies that do it
Reebok – Like many sports clothing brands, Reebok are all about being fit and active. Rather than just offering the standard gym membership discount, Reebok provide their employees free workout classes, and a plethora of facilities for their employees to use to work out and get fit. Their office canteen also provides a wide range of healthy food options.
Apple – Free Apple’s for all their employees. Obvious isn’t it?
Purina – The pet food company allows staff to bring their dogs into the office with them, with all employees’ dogs getting their own job titles! Doing this means employees don’t need to worry about leaving their dogs at home on their own, reducing stress for both them and their dogs!
When it comes to aligning your benefits with your company purpose and values, communication is key. Both in terms of how you communicate your benefits to your employees and how you communicate your use of those benefits to the outside world, so bear this in mind too!