Talent shortages are on the rise and employee engagement is on a downward spiral. Employers are responding with some pretty unbelievable perks in hopes of attracting and retaining top talent.
We're talking way beyond the office ping pong table.
Recent years have seen employers offer all kinds of insane perks and benefits. From freezing your corpse to getting extremely casual on Fridays, it seems that today's employee perks have finally jumped the shark.
And sure, the struggle is real. But is all this really necessary? 🤷🏽
Here are the top perks and benefits your future rockstars really want.
Next Level Health Benefits
According to a 2016 Glassdoor survey, health insurance is the #1 benefit that matters most to candidates when accepting a new position.
And anyone who's ever visited a waiting room knows healthcare is an industry ripe for disruption.
Digital health tools like Doctor On Demand in the US and babylon in the UK, are changing the game by bringing qualified physical and mental health professionals straight to your employees' mobile phones via phone or video consultation. They can even have prescriptions delivered straight to the office. 👍🏾
The future of employee perks is all about flexibility and work/life harmony. Offering more convenient healthcare tools is a sure way to let your people know that come rain, shine or flu season—you've got their back.
Swoon-worthy Parental Perks
You already know that by 2030, millennials will account for 75% of the workforce.
But did you know that more than a million of said millennials are becoming parents each year?
If you don't already have your parental perks in place, now's the time. Employers are regularly losing talent due to inadequate parental benefits—don't let it happen to you.
But before you run to your CEO asking for a six-figure budget for breast-milk shipping (btw, if that's feasible for you, go for it!), you should know that great parental benefits aren't just for flashy startups and Fortune 500s.
Some of the best ways to make your working parents' lives easier doesn't cost much at all.
For example, implementing a simple "no explanation needed" policy for time off to attend a family event can be a huge relief to high-performance parents who are wondering if it's really ok to leave early to go to their kid's ballet recital.
Flexible Scheduling
You knew this one was coming. 😉
According to PwC's global survey, 72% of working millennials felt they made some sort of tradeoff to get into the workforce. And that's just sad.
But here's the thing. It's not the 1800s anymore and your employees don't want to feel like cogs in a machine. Flexible scheduling, paid time off (PTO), and work from home (WFH) benefits are the indisputable way to attract the best talent out there, simply by recognizing that they have a life outside the office.
Companies like Netflix and LinkedIn offer unlimited PTO to cement their employer of choice status, but again, this isn't a perk that requires organizations to take a big hit to the bottom line.
Whether you opt to offer flexible hours, WFH or better PTO benefits, the real trick is to lower the number of requirements for how and why those days are taken and make sure that "flexible" doesn't become a euphemism for working more.
Today's star talent is more than comfy with a variety of tech tools, and they're happy to be held accountable for their work, whether that happens in the office or on the couch.
The right perks will help you attract high-potential candidates by simply letting them know you trust them to do their best, no matter what life or work throws at them.
