There are lots of reasons why employers add benefits. The obvious is that they want to attract and retain employees. But attracting and retaining is only a vanity metric when offering something better. The real reason to do so is about being a good human and the desire to always do better, be better.
When you approach your decisions under the auspices that what you are offering is for the greater good you will see the byproduct, which in the case of employee benefits is attraction and retention. Making it the byproduct takes away adding benefits that aren’t really that great but look shiny and cute on a job posting.
With these reasons in mind, we are excited to announce two new real benefits this month.Â
The first is fairly common in larger organizations and in the technology world, sabbaticals. We believe that those who have achieved a milestone should be rewarded and the best reward is a break to regroup. Our program follows a pretty standard 4 weeks off every five years. While we have an open PTO policy, allowing employees to take the time necessary, the sabbatical allows for a longer, uninterrupted time off and puts the onus on us, the employer, to figure out how to deal with the longer time away. It also allows for full breaks away without the guilt of feeling like you need to check in.
The second benefit is the one I am most excited about. It is called the “Fresh Start”. This is a two-week paid time off at the start of employment. All too often people leave one job for another job and aren’t able to take time off in between to regroup. We take care of that for new employees by starting their pay two weeks prior to their actual start date. It is an optional program, as there are people not working or others who may take a long vacation at the end of their prior job and don’t mind starting right away. The flexibility allows new employees to come in fresh at the start of their new career.
These won’t be the end and I would love to hear from others if they have unique benefits that are driving better health for their employees. We aren’t stopping at these two new ones!
