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What benefits can you offer that help recruit good talent?
- thehorge 18y agoOne of the perks that more companies should start providing are incentives to workout. Providing a gym or subsidizing a gym membership for an employee will not only benefit the employee's health, but with a healthier employee there is less of a need for sick days. The employee can concentrate their paid time off on vacation. When the employee is feeling good about themselves, the quality of work and their attitude might improve as well.
- time_management 18y agoI agree with this. The hour spent working out is regained in productivity.
- gaius 18y agoOne of the best companies I worked for was just around the corner from a Holmes Place (upmarket chain of gyms), they got us all memberships and we could literally hold meetings in the sauna or jacuzzi. Only place I've ever worked where everyone had seen everyone else naked...
- ojbyrne 18y agoI'm guessing that was an all-male company?
- deleted 18y ago[deleted]
- ardit33 18y agoFirst, great pay, and a good amount of stock options, interesting work, and good work enviroment. After that. 4 weeks of vacation --- minimum. Good health care Real dental coverage Gym subsidy Comuting help (shuttles, or public transport subsidies)
- time_management 18y agoI'd agree with all this, to the letter, and I'd add one, because aside from a signing bonus, it's relatively cheap: Moving assistance, both in the financial sense, and in terms of connecting people with necessary services and utilities. This is especially salient in a place like New York where life is not as "convenient" as one might expect it to be.
- ecommercematt 18y agoWe're based in New York, so this interests me. What sort of extra help do you think we should give to people relocating here?
- mrtron 18y agoMaybe help finding a place? I've heard horror stories, and mainly its due to ignorance of the market. So perhaps have a friendly real estate agent available?
- time_management 18y agoNew York real estate agents are utterly terrible. Once you have them show you more than 8-10 apartments, they stop returning your calls, because they'd prefer not having to work for their absurd commissions. Last time I used one in a move, I ended up spending $2600 for an introduction. This was to one person, for an hour and a half of work at most. The movers, of whom there were 4, charged me $320 for three hours of backbreaking, difficult labor. They did excellent work. They were thrilled when I added an extra $60. The comparison just makes me want to vomit.
- tptacek 18y agoWe're in NYC and Chicago, and NYC lost an employee to the Chicago office because finding an apartment was such a nightmare. So, there's that to deal with.
- menloparkbum 18y ago
- sanj 18y agonearby, quality childcare
- tptacek 18y agoThis is an excellent idea. Do you know how much decent child care for school age children costs? ~$20/hr, fully loaded.
- sanj 18y agoI'm painfully aware how much it costs. The bigger question to me, as with charities, is how much goes to the people that matter. In this case, the ones that care for my kid.
- tptacek 18y agoIf I had several team members with kids, I'd probably look in to just contracting someone directly off Craigslist, in which case 100% of the money goes to the person caring for your kids.
- tptacek 18y agoA four day work week.
- elai 18y agoFree Lunch? It can be productivity booster too, since your staff don't have to spend an ~hour walking, hunting for a good restaurant, waiting for food, eating said food, and walking back when the food is just right there. This can be more of a personal preference type of thing.
- a-priori 18y agoAlso, it would encourage employees to eat together and therefore socialize.
- dangoldin 18y agoAbility to work from home - telecommute. Judge work by result and not by time spent.
- jon_dahl 18y agoAfter you've met a salary/benefit baseline, the most important thing to recruiting good talent is the work. Often, a good employee will take a fair salary for really interesting work over a great salary for boring work. I've talked with people willing to even take a pay cut to get out of a boring job. IMO an employer should (a) pay employees fairly and (b) treat them well, give them enjoyable work, etc. And then (c) share the company's profits, if there are any (or when they come). I think this is more important than having an impressive slate of benefits.
- vaksel 18y agoYou also need friendly atmosphere, make people want to come to work, instead of having it be a chore
- briancooley 18y agoIn priority order for me: 1. interesting work (not sure if this is considered a perq by most, but it is for me.) 2. time off, both via flexible work schedules and generous vacation 3. located within a short commute of desirable and reasonably affordable housing. alternatively offering telecommuting Other benefits like health/life/disability insurance are nice, but they won't make or break a deal for me any longer.
- DaniFong 18y agoAs I posted on the blog: I often cook the troops quality, gourmet food, give them cool trips and the chance to put up crazy installation art, and throw many person dinner parties (with outsiders, too). I also am getting graph paper placemats: http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/engineers-a-paper-tablecloth/ http://einfall.wordpress.com/2008/08/20/engineers-a-paper-ta...