It’s a brave new world for small business expenditure: workplace perks and employee benefits are crucial to today’s prospective employees.
Generation Z-ers, or those born between the mid 1990’s and 2000, value workplace benefits more than any other age group, according to a study by Perkbox.
Some 36 per cent of post-millennials admit that workplace perks on offer are one of the most important deciding factors on whether to accept a new job or not, highlighting the importance of businesses having a strong benefits structure in place when recruiting new talent from this demographic.
Small businesses are often in a position to offer more unusual and flexible employee benefits than larger organisations. Competitive salaries aren’t the only employee benefit job-seekers are after; research carried out by Glassdoor finds that 34 per cent of employees say benefits and perks will attract them to a new job.
Here, CEO of Stratton Craig Darren Clare presents five employee benefits your small business could adopt in order to stand out from the larger organisations and attract the best possible talent.
Flexible holidays
Research proves that employees with a good work-life balance are not only happier, but more productive. In addition to contracted holiday, why not offer a long weekend for members of staff once a quarter? Whether this is based on work performance or open for everyone is at your discretion; offering staff the occasional extra day of holiday will help your SME stand out. Other ideas could be to offer employees’ birthdays off or to close your business completely over the Christmas to new year period.
Focus on family
Survey Monkey carried out research into the employee benefits that working mums value most. The survey finds that only 40 per cent of the organisations the participants work for full-time offer flexible working hours and 67 per cent allow parents to take time off for a sick child. To make your small business more distinct, demonstrate a focus on your employee’s families so that parents can keep a good work/parenting balance. Parents will be grateful for having the option to work from home every so often or take time off for sports days and school plays.
Memberships
New year, new you? Large enterprises are commonly offering gym memberships to help their employees stay fit and healthy – after all, they’re less likely to take time off ill meaning absenteeism should fall and productivity should rise. But why not stand out even further with a staff Netflix or Spotify membership? While employees appreciate work-related memberships for industry publications and events, fun and unique ones will be very happily accepted. By offering a unique incentive like this, you’ll be showing job applicants that you believe in going the extra mile for your employees, which will help attract the best possible talent.
Possibility of promotions
A driven young professional will want to start reaping the rewards from their investment in their education, so it’s vital that you promote the fact you’ll help them learn, grow and develop professionally. Making this clear in a job advert will entice fresh talent into your small business.
A job with long-term security and stability can be of major importance when job-seeking, so get potential recruits on board by reassuring them with the possibility of a pay rise (if it’s been earned, of course!). Likewise, you could offer annual pay reviews or pay for employees to attend training days and conferences.
Additional quirky perks
Whereas a large corporation might have relatively strict guidelines for their staff working environment, smaller businesses have the freedom to offer some slightly unconventional working perks. Having meetings on bean bags or outdoors in nice weather, offering a selection of free treats, organising team lunches in new restaurants and having the radio on in the background are some, but these can be as flexible and fun as you think appropriate. Swinton Insurance offers staff an extra day’s holiday for Christmas shopping, Google has a variety of cuisines on offer every day and Holiday Extras hires out a cinema once every year for employees and their families to watch a film for free.
Further reading on employee benefits
