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?"

Comments

Are jobs coming into vogue again?

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Seriously, it seems the job market is only marginally better these days.

Re:Are jobs coming into vogue again?

[twiddlingbits]

Right now there isn't a lot of slack in the market 2% less in the market means the market can't absorb current demand so the price goes up to stiffle demand. Lower supply with equal demand always means higher price. The big thing is the worry that Yukos is just the tip of the iceberg and the Russin Gov't may go after other oil companies. Privitization has increased Russian oil production about 5X in the last 15 yrs, and I think there are some fears that if things are nationalized that production will decrease. Also, this is the time of year that refineries start producing more fuel oil for winter but also have to keep gasoline stocks up for the rest of the summer which means the demand increases a bit now. Add in the fact that China has all of a sudden gotten oil hungry, that very little new domestic production is available in the USA, the North Sea is about maxed out, and any deepwater work in Africa is 5-10 yrs from market and expect the high prices to continue. Add in Iraq and terrorists and you got almost chaos. Everyone who trades oil watches all these situations 24x7 and tries to make money off negative situations, real or imagined. Russian oil companies are not listed on any American stock exchanges if that is what you mean. THe price of oil is set in dollars, what currency you pay in just has to be adjusted for it's value relative to the US dollar and that's the price in that currency. In Euros the price is less than in dollars but a Euro is worth more than a dollar conversely, oil in Canadian dollars is higher as the Canadian dollar is only worth about 60 -70% of a US dollar. If you are interested in all this, you can learn about it. /. might not be the BEST place but you do get some good stuff here. A course or two in International Business (or a book or two) would let you learn a lot and help you sort out the nonsense you hear from press and politicians from the facts.

Re:Are jobs coming into vogue again?

[Nurf]

You forgot the hundreds of thousands of legal immigrant guest workers let in under the pretext of a "labor shortage."

Heh. The funny thing is that I am one of those workers, and I can't keep people from offering me jobs at pretty nice salaries ($100K/year or so). It's quite annoying really, having people phone you all the time and try to get you to work for them. I hate turning people down.

It's become a lot worse in the last 6 months or so.

I feel no shame. I am more expensive than an American and there is severe pain getting visas for me, and yet people are still competing to hire me. If an American in the same field can't get a job, the problem is not me.

I will be moving to a new job next month, and I expect my job to directly add at least another 2 jobs to the market in the next year (I'll need minions). Go philanthropist me!

Someone better tell

[mytec]

that to MS as they are going in the opposite direction.

Re:The only perks I get...

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps what we need is some honesty in the perks system. - ie:

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

Re:stronger?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

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).

Then, Now, Tomorrow

[blunte]

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.

Perks

[Judg3]

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.

I know many hate to admit it...

[mtrupe]

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!

Re:The only perks I get...

[WillDraven]

All I get is a single regular size sandwich (as long as it dosent have roast beef on it, and no hot subs, oh and no #13s either, they have like 6 kinds of meat) and all the mountain dew I can drink. The closest thing to a computer I get to use at work is the cash register.

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...