Outside the box Employee Benefits?
Greetings! What are some outside the box benefits you offer employees? As a small business, insurance is cost prohibitive as is offering PTO.
What are some low-cost benefits your employees appreciate?
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For this specific time of year we are purchasing Thanksgiving meals for all employees.
Gym memberships, spotify for technicians who listen to music all the time, I got audible for people who wanted to listed to development books (or fun ones)
Do you have an ice machine? You need one.
There are some good answers already - I’ll just add for anyone searching in the future. I tend to think about employee benefits in three buckets:
- Compensation – pay, bonuses, gift cards, profit sharing.
- Flexibility – predictable schedules, time off when life happens, advance notice of schedule changes.
- Growth – training, new responsibilities, certifications, and a clear path to higher pay.
Small businesses often struggle to compete on compensation, but they can be incredibly competitive on flexibility and growth.
One thing I’ve seen overlooked is creating a clear path to advancement. If employees know exactly how they can increase their skills, responsibilities, and pay over time, that can be more valuable than many low-cost perks.
If I had a limited budget, I’d focus on flexibility, development, and showing employees what their future with the company could look like.
I'm looking into partnership or barter opportunities where our company can provide services in exchange for a benefit to all the employees. For example, securing a commercial cleaning contract with a local day care service, in exchange for day care services for the kids of our cleaners. As long as the value is proportional, I've found many other small business owners open to these kind of trades!
