Slashdot Mirror
Are Job Perks Coming into Vogue Again?
Pharmboy asks: "The Register is reporting on a company that was awarded 'Best Small Company to Work for in America' by the Detroit Free Press, in part, for providing Free beer to their employees. They offer free breakfast, lunch AND dinner, gym and snacks. This sounds similar to the late 90s, where companies were offering extreme benefits to attract extreme talent, before the bubble burst and most workers were just glad to have a job. As the job market gains strength, what are companies willing to do in order to attract the best talent? Are we about to enter another era where employers are willing to make work fun again, in order to attract and keep talent? Will this have any effect on other employers, forcing them to again offer benefits to keep pace and talent? How important are these kinds of perks to the average employee anyway? What kind of perks would you have to have to switch to a job that pay the same?"
Seriously, it seems the job market is only marginally better these days.
See the news today? 32,000 new jobs for July?
I still know too many people who consider a perk actually being paid more then a burger flipper. This is probably one of those exceptional places, where the owner doesn't feel the need to line his pocket and gives something back. See how long it lasts.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
that to MS as they are going in the opposite direction.
You are entitled to £10000 (or whatever) of perks per year. Choose from the following list:
Company car: annual value £5000
Free food: annual value £4000
Notebook computer: annual value £300
etc etc etc
This still enables the companies to get their bulk discounts etc, making perks cheaper than extra salary. Further, it would mean employees get what they WANT from their perks, and feel happy about their employer being honest with them. (Yes, there are obvious holes here, but how is it as a basic premise?)
Googlebomb: Jabba the Lawyer
I was out 26 months (October 2001-December 2003). Hang in there. You'll find the questions for assistance are MUCH harder now than they were even 10 years ago- food stamps basically aren't available if you have 2 people getting UI checks within the last 6 months, and welfare is basically non-existant. We lost about half of our asset value before I finally got a job. And I was putting out 100 resumes every single month (basically did nothing else other than send out resumes).
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Then (during the "bubble", yes perks were particularly in vogue). Some of the 90s perks were ridiculous. Netscape was famous for many things, and infamous for some of their perks - onsite free sushi bar, roving free masseuse, etc.
DotComs were offering Ferraris to those who could recruit the most talent. Everyone who was anyone offered stock options.
When the bubble burst, much of the madness was finally seen as madness, and it all went away. That gave many existing companies leverage to take away benefits - "You're lucky to have a job!". Yes and no.
I had a friend who was an attorney for Tandy Corporation (Radio Shack). Tandy paid their attorneys ridiculously low salaries (as in $30k/yr for a real estate attorney). When I asked him what the hell was wrong with them, and why they thought that was appropriate, he told me their response: "These guys are just going to come here for a couple of years and leave anyway, so why should we pay them reasonably?" Duh! Naturally, anyone with talent will move along. That's true in IT as well, and options do still exist. Maybe they involve moving to a new city, but they exist.
Some companies have been doing right all along, and they are rewarded with fierce loyalty and very good productivity. SAS Institute, in Cary, North Carolina, has been providing stellar perks for years. They've remained private, and thus avoided the Quarterly Earnings per Share death-cycle. Imagine if your company had benefits like theirs.
Other companies could be like SAS if they weren't public, and if their leaders understood what some perks could do for their productivity and employee loyalty.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Ah, well, perks are cool.
One of my last jobs catered us lunch on Fridays, did the free liquor thing, paid for our healthcare and did a 150% 401k match (Every dollar I put in, they put in 1.50).
This current job is a hell of a lot better though. Sure, they don't have all the real cool perks. Catered lunch was replaced by Donut/Bagel Fridays, there's no company match for the 401k (Until next year), the healthcare isn't free but they do chip in. But I do get some nice perks, mainly the free college education. I can work my way up to a PhD and it's on the company dime. And they take care of me better then the employer with a lot of perks. There's no pay cap. Well, there is, but if you hit the cap for your position, instead of a raise the company will cut you a bonus check for a few thousand. And they give everyone a certain percentage in stock each year. Overall, even though I have less visable perks, the perks I do get, in the end, equals more money. Bonuses, stocks, and a free education hehe.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Several employees have corporate gas cards, car allowances (even for non-sales/travelling personnel), corporately paid cell phone bills, corporate laptops, corporate paid internet access, etc.
We do this because we would rather people get something useful than giving half a pay raise to the government. Plus we try and be flexible on work hours (although on the flip-side we are INSANELY timeline sensitive, e.g. work when you want but get it done by Wednesday 9:00am).
I'm noticing a trend with friends at other places as well. It's a win-win in my books.
I've been doing that for my employees forever. I never stopped, nor will I. All I ask is that they show up to work on time, and work while they're here. I give all kinds of bennies. Including free colocation (up to a certain bandwidth of course). Gym membership, paid time off to GO to the gym membership. Best Healthcare I can find, Parties, HOMEBREWED beer made by yours truly. 3 weeks vacation time, plus additional time off for any overtime worked that's cumulitive and rolls over from year to year up to a certain point.
:(
What's funny is I have ALL of the same employees I had 5 years ago when I started this. They know their work inside and out and there's very little they can't handle. I wouldn't trade my crew for anything. I like to think I'm a good boss, and I work WITH my employees, not above them....sadly enough, they make more than I do
Economists think that in general, Employees are paid based on their productivity.
If you create lots of value, you get lots of money, if you create less, you get less. On average that must be pretty close to reality, because if you get paid more than what you create, your average company would go bust right away.
Now, if you get "Perks" like Gym, free food etc, that's still coming from your total compensation, and on average just makes your paycheck smaller. That's true for Perks as well as "Free" insurance, Social Security and all the other things that "the employer pays for". If the Employer does not pay for it, you would get that money.
IANAE (I am not an economist)
get 7 free Japanese lessons.
but the market is back. I've had 3 job offers in the past month, all of which pay 10 to 20% more than I make now. Today I went to my current employer and told them my situation--- they are going to counter offer.
I think the big perk right now is working from home or at various sites. My current job allows me to work from home 2 days a week. Oh- and I get every other Friday off. One of my job offers has 1/2 days ever Friday. Hopefully I see two trends:
1. Employers are realizing that we have lives and not forcing us to work ridiculous hours. I make more than I have ever made right now and I never work more than 40 hours a week.
2. Employers see the benefit of allowing employees to work off site and/or at home. 2 of the 3 offers I have had offer work at home benefits. My current job allows me to work from home. Nice. Why does a software engineer need to be in the office every day anyway?
Markets go in cycles. We are in a recovery now. Employers are ready to produce again, and in the case of software, that means its time to hire. They realize that outsourcing didn't save them any money, so they are hiring workers right here in the U.S. Good news!
[FromTheMorning]
Some income is definitely better than no income, even if it's a shit job like at a gas station. I've been through that (albeit only for a few months), my credit cards are maxed, payments are starting to be missed, and I'd be in deeper shit than I am now if not for the fact that I went to a staffing agency and picked up temporary jobs at factories/etc to at least keep some money rolling in for the time being. The job market sucks but there's always a need for somebody with a pulse lower down the food chain.
And your daughter should have been able to file for some kind of financial aid. Institutional funds, student loans, grants, anything.
Thats when the boss is thier anyway, when he's out we eat whatever the hell we want (#13 with triple meat and quadruple cheese) and bring in our laptops for some smoke-break deathmatching.
I work at a Jersey Mikes sandwich shop.. oh the joy. No tech companies want to hire a 19 year old felon (bullshit drug charges, I was set up[yeah i know thats what they all say(seriously tho, it was entrapment[i wish i had that shit on tape])]), no matter how many programming languages I know or networks I've debugged, etc, etc...
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Exactly right. Free meals, free beer, cheap soft drinks are nice and all but they can be synonymous to peanuts the exec's throw to their chimps to reward them for doing good tricks. Free meals are cool but they are there first and foremost to nudge you in to putting in more uncompensated overtime.
Over the years I've set my priorities from hard experience:
A. Make sure the company's executive team isn't looting the company through stock options, signing bonuses for their own, interest free loans that turn in to gifts etc. If they are giving them to themselves make sure they are giving them to performers in the engineering offices, too. The more they loot the less there will be for incentives for worker bees and to fund adequate staffing.
B. If the company goes through a hard patch make sure the execs are sacrificing MORE than the working people, because they are making a lot more. If you go in to one of those "sacrifice" meetings and you have guts ask the head cheese to tell you what sacrifices he and his bosses are making. If he can't answer, gets pissed off or you get laid off for it you don't want to be there anyway.
C. Opt for a company that will give you a walled office over a cube nearly every time. It indicates they really do value you and they want you to be productive. If they are shoving you in cubes they probably view you at the same level as cattle to be milked, especially if they are all in plush offices. It pretty much sicks if the execs are in cubes too because execs shouldn't me sitting in the middle of a cube farm talking about confidential things.
D. Make sure the executives have the vision and ability to create a successful product and are building a team to produce one. 80+ hour weeks kind of suck but they suck a lot more if the product ends up being a disaster, since disasters usually mean layoffs versus the payoff that follow success, plus it just feels good to be proud of something you put so much effort in. If the product is successful make sure there is a payoff for the worker bees and not just the execs or you should either:
A. Aspire to be an exec and learn to do all the underhanded things necessary to become one, golf skills are a must.
B. Move on
@de_machina
I didn't say post your resume there. I said look for jobs there. People that post resumes there are looking for trouble.
If you do what I said, and look for the jobs there, companies do post them. If you see a company you want to apply to, contact them directly.
This DOES work.
How else do you get a job at a company that you have no inside contacts with?
Right on - I work for a multinational as well and my even after my group was 'downsized' by about 70% to India while the work load went up by 100%, they are now getting us 'help' from India. Three Indian programmers; who will then be rotated into 'other' groups but they won't hire one local person. The joy of work is gone - most people now work to keep their jobs rather than work to do anything meaningful.
Economy improving? Ask those who are in the unemployment line.
Well I currently have: a company car (they pay the insurance and maintenance), a guaranteed 10% of salary additional bonus for each full year I stay, full health care for me and the wife, 24 days holiday. Oh and pension scheme that the employer contributes 5% of my salary to.
I think that's pretty much standard in the UK- the only thing that's changed for me after 3 months on the dole about 2 years ago was I lost my long service leave entitlement (it used to be 27 days).
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.