You’re a growing organisation, you already offer a competitive salary and you’re pulling together or already provide a great employee benefits package. So, what else could you offer to attract new employees into your organisation, especially Millenials who have high expectations when researching prospective employers?
You don’t have to be a huge organisation to be attractive to potential new recruits but if you aspire to stand out in an increasingly crowded market, you might think about introducing some attention grabbing employee benefits that are above and beyond the standard or just a little bit different.
Below, we take a look at some of the different types of employee benefits being offered to staff by some of the UK’s most popular organisations.
Generous holidays
A minimum of 25 days holiday is standard (on top of the usual public days) for many of the larger employers. Increasingly popular is allowing employees to purchase extra leave, giving staff their birthdays off work, extra days in between Christmas and New Year and the radical sounding unlimited annual leave, which is offered by giants including LinkedIn and Twitter. This one wouldn’t be feasible for all organisations or roles but there are famous advocates, including Sir Richard Branson who offers it to all of his personal staff.
Enhanced maternity/paternity leave
Businesses are progressively improving their employee benefits for parents and the amount of paid leave that some are providing their staff is growing. Accenture gives its employees 36 weeks fully paid leave for mothers or fathers. Aviva provides 26 weeks on full pay and Transport for London offers 39 weeks as standard, plus a further 13 weeks additional leave that can be taken later.
Travel opportunities
Sabbatical programmes are increasing in popularity as more people seek to travel, without having to completely sacrifice successful positions. Deloitte have a choice of programs including up to six months paid leave. Travelwise takes its entire workforce away on annual, all-expenses-paid holidays and AirBnB famously gift every employee $2000 to use every year on their own adventures. Many organisations including The Body Shop will also fund volunteering trips, allowing both the individual and the business to give something back.
Very flexible working
Of course, flexitime has been around for years but these days it is truly flexible at many organisations. Allowing staff to choose when and where to work – whether that be at home, in the office or on the move – has advantages for both employees and employers. Homeworking has proven to be more productive and with less sick time, better retention rates and less money spent on office space.
VIP treatment
There are some great examples of this in the top 10 of the businesses you’ll find in LinkedIn’s Top Companies 2018. Luxury brand Richemont take all new starts to their headquarters in Geneva for two days in their 19th century chalet and EY give their staff tickets to some of the most in demand exhibitions in the UK, absolutely free. The BBC have their own membership scheme, The BBC Club which gives staff discounts at all their bars, cafes, restaurants and gyms, as well as high street discounts, private lottery and members only events.
Growth and development
Increasingly employers are encouraging their staff with their career aspirations, even if that career isn’t necessarily within the same area. Amazon have put a large number of people through their Amazon Career Choice programme, in which the business funds up to 95% of tuition and fees towards a diploma or certificate in qualified fields of study.
Promoting wellbeing
Looking after health should always be a priority, with employee benefits including body MOTs, dental care and private medical cover making up some of the key fundamentals of strong employee benefits packages. Mental health struggles is a growing area of concern and introducing activities to help increase positive mental health and wellbeing are becoming more popular. HSBC have a month long focus every year to highlight awareness, where they share stories to help and ensure people know where to go if they need support. Whilst this may not necessarily be classed as an employee benefit, it’s a valuable resource to have if needed and demonstrates care for employees. It’s also becoming well known that physical activity is great for supporting mental health and corporate gym memberships are consistently one of the top performing employee benefits we offer and are accessible to smaller businesses too.
Family events
These can be embraced by businesses on differing budgets and scales. Holiday Extras hires out a cinema every year and offers a free showing to all employees and their families. BGL Group run an annual fun day, free to all employees who can bring family members or friends to a catered day of fairground rides, clay pigeon shoots and lots of activities for children. If you don’t have a social committee at your company to organise events for you, now may be time to introduce one.
Big discounts
Most retailers will give their staff a discount when purchasing their own product or service but some go further than others and depending on what it is you’re producing, could be highly sought after. ASOS, New Look and Nando’s are a few who allow their employees a generous 40% off, with Pizza Hut and JD Wetherspoon giving a whopping 50% off to employees. This may not be applicable for your organisation but you can still offer desirable discounts to your employees through You at Work, with savings to be made on items from cars to the latest tech devices.
If you think your business isn’t of the size to warrant some of these ideas, remember that if you’re a smaller organisation you have the flexibility that some larger corporates with strict guidelines to follow don’t always have. You have the freedom to be doing things spontaneously such as a lunchtime barbecue on a particularly sunny day, taking everyone for drinks or finishing early to celebrate a big win.
Whichever approach you take we can provide you with an integrated platform to help you communicate everything that you offer to employees. Plus, ask us about some of the new employee benefits we have coming on board to help you stand out even further. Give us a call or drop us an e-mail and we can run you through a free, fast demo to show you what we can do for your business.