About Creative Employee Benefits
Providing extra employee benefits is a cost-effective way to boost morale and cultivate worker loyalty, especially advantageous for small businesses desiring to keep their workers from moving to large corporations. Showing those employees an extra sense of appreciation can go a long way in promoting satisfaction and creating a more positive working environment.
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Significance
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Creative benefits can be a valuable tool for making employees happier with the workplace. Since it is costly for a company to lose good employees and have to train new ones, relatively inexpensive ways of increasing worker satisfaction are recommended. Especially during difficult economic times, a business can maintain loyalty by providing worker-friendly policies and unexpected gestures of appreciation.
Types
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A multitude of possibilities are available for creative benefits. A company might provide wellness options, which can be as simple as offering free fruit and other healthy snacks. If any empty space is available in the building, a gym or meditation room can be set up. People also love freebies. Tickets to matinees, museums and lunch; coupons for free car washes and oil changes; or a department store gift certificate--all are great ideas to make workers feel more appreciated. Free pizza provided once a month, enrichment programs with continuing education, and allowing employees to devote a couple hours each month to a nonprofit organization all help create community in the workplace.
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Identification
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Sometimes creative benefit possibilities are right in a company's back yard and management doesn't even see them. Many companies use their own products to enhance worker satisfaction, and small businesses can identify with large ones in specific ways. Coca-Cola branch offices, for instance, provide free soda during work hours, and give Christmas-related Coke products during the holidays. Each employee at New Belgium Brewing in Fort Collins, Colorado receives free beer to take home each week. Employees at newspapers generally receive free subscriptions. How many companies encourage workers to hang around after hours in a sense of camaraderie? Insurance provider Acuity, located in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, stocked its pond so employees can indulge in some fishing after work.
Considerations
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Consider the type of employees working at the business. If this is a workshop employing mostly men, then minor league ball game tickets are a better bet than tickets to the ballet. Parents of young children will especially appreciate the option of a flexible schedule.
Expert Insight
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Where does a company find further ideas for creative employee benefits? See the Resources section below for some links with many ideas. A perfect way to gain insight is to go straight to the source, and a suggestion box may be all that's needed. Rather than hiring a consultant to show ways to boost company morale, a business likely will find that employees themselves are more than happy to offer free advice.
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