We’ve all heard the stories about how Google HQ have lots of employee perks (from free food to onsite gyms), but it is possible to create perks that both your employees and your bottom line will love. We have talked about some employee perks on our Linkedin page, but here’s a longer list to give you food for thought.
Healthy Employee Perks
Keeping your employees healthy is good for business so why not incorporate a few of these employee perks:
- Offering flu shots at work – either a pharmacy or medical clinic can administer flu shots so why not reach out to a local one and organise them to come out to your workplace and offer all of your employees flu shots on a particular date.
- Gym Membership Discounts – reach out to a local gym and see if they are interested in offering your employees a special discount on their memberships. This also helps another local business which is always a bonus.
- Offering yoga classes in the work place either before or after work once or twice a week is a very popular idea.
- Weekly Massages – You could also organise a masseuse to come in on Friday afternoons to give people shoulder massages so that they can go into their weekends feeling refreshed.
Food & Drink Employee Perks
Of course we all eat and so why not offer a few of these tempting employee perks:
- Usually workplaces offer instant coffee and tea for their employees, but what about getting a really nice coffee machine and buying the beans or pods for the employees to enjoy?
- Another coffee inspired employee perk could be making a Monday morning coffee run to a local coffee shop for your employees (or you may even be able to get a local café to bring the coffees to your workplace)
- If you have monthly staff meetings then you could cater them to show your appreciation.
- Birthdays should be celebrated so why not celebrate with birthday cake? I have to say that this is one of the most popular perks at Frederiks Accountants!
- Friday night drinks is also a perk offered at some businesses, although you have to be careful if your employees are driving home so offering transport home in the form of an uber or cab is another way of allowing your employees to unwind and bond while still getting home safely for the weekend.
Perks for Animal Loving Employees?
I don’t know about you, but more and more people treat their pets as their children so why not offer these pet friendly perks to your employees:
- There have been a few articles recently in both Business Insider and Forbes about pawternity which seems to be the latest employee benefit idea. As people become ‘fur parents’ it allows them paid leave when they first bring their little bundle home for the first time.
- A more established pet idea that is very popular is the ‘bring your pet to work’, this is so popular there is even a National Bring Your Pet to Work Day. This could be something you implement all the time or just once a week.
As a small business owner have a good look at your staff and what they value to come up with employee perks that would be appreciated. Every business is different so you need to tailor your employee perks to suit for example if you run a health shop then flu shots probably wouldn’t be appreciated, but Echinacea tincture might be.
Offering the right employee perks can dramatically increase your employee retention rate and it has also been suggested that it increases staff productivity, both things that any business would want.
Be sure to discuss how offering different employee perks will impact your business’s taxes with your accountant first so that you know exactly what these perks will cost you.
If you want more information pertaining to this article or any other business advice them please phone us or email us.
