No Offense to the Ping-Pong Table, but...: A Guide to Perks that Work
Erica Keswin
Future of Work Expert | 3X WSJ Bestselling Author | Keynote Speaker | 4x LinkedIn Learning Instructor | Human Leadership Coach | Professional Dot Connector
Remember when the “careers page” of a company’s website might have looked like this?
We offer highly competitive compensation and benefits, two weeks of paid vacation, 401K matching and paid holidays.
During the dot-com craze, companies desperate for top talent starting adding free meals (breakfast, lunch and dinner), beer and kombucha on tap, unlimited vacation, ping pong tables and dry cleaning service. I recently read about a company that offered teeth-cleaning services at work.
What could be better?
As convenient as it is to never have to leave the office, truly human companies understand that while free dinner is great for some people (especially of the young, single, childless variety), it also keeps us at work longer, which we’re learning does not make us more productive. According to a 2014 Stanford study, “for hours of 48 or less, weekly output tends to be proportional to weekly hours worked….” So putting in reasonable hours means productivity to match. By contrast, “employees at work for a long time may experience fatigue or stress that not only reduces his or her productivity but also increases the probability of errors, accidents, and sickness that impose costs on the employer.”
So keeping our employees at the office longer could lead to MORE errors. No thanks!
In the Slack offices, this awesome slogan—Work hard and go home—is posted on the wall, and they purposefully don’t serve dinner. Imagine a company’s benefits page that says: We serve breakfast and lunch. We DON’T serve dinner because we want you to go home to have dinner with the people you love.
Companies and leaders who get it align their benefits with what people really want in the human workplace: Connection, Growth and Flexibility.
Stacy Brown-Philpot, CEO of TaskRabbit (a platform that enables anyone to request a “task” that another person, a “Tasker,” can perform) is one such leader. Take a look at the Careers page on the TaskRabbit website and you will get a glimpse of a leader who understands what today’s employees really want.
CONNECTION
Stress takes a major toll on us at work. According to the American Institute of Stress, “An estimated 1 million workers are absent every day due to stress.” So it’s a good thing that wellness initiatives that offer yoga, fitness, and healthy living are often listed in company handbooks as ways to offer support to employees.
Brown-Philpot takes it a step further. She highlights that at TaskRabbit, employees receive the benefits of connection. How? Through weekly meditation, annual charity events and off-site, team-building adventures. Brown-Philpot is smart to make sure that employees connect with each other, the world and themselves.
GROWTH
One of the top three things millennials and Gen Z want is professional development. According to a Door of Clubs survey, Gen Zers “place a high value on mentorship, with a third of them ranking it as the most important benefit an employer can offer, just a few percentage points behind health care.”
So Brown-Philpot is mighty smart to offer her employees just that. The TaskRabbit website reads:
Grow your career in a multitude of ways – with TaskRabbit and IKEA. [TaskRabbit was acquired by IKEA in 2017] As we expand, you’ll have options to work globally.
And the younger generations have shown a strong interest in the opportunity to travel (In a BCG study on millennial travel trends, “70% of the respondents opined they have a strong desire to travel and is a major reason why they work”), which TaskRabbit understands well. Not only that, but they offer other ways to grow with “engaging speaker series, frequent trainings and an L&D Stipend.”
FLEXIBILITY
Flexibility is often cited as employees’ most valued benefit. According to a survey by FlexJobs, 80% of respondents said work flexibility was the most important factor of a job. As we have become connected 24x7 by technology, and work has encroached into our personal time and space, the human company ensures that employees have flexibility to take care of their business during work hours.
TaskRabbit has generous parental leave as well as personal time off to take care of a sick parent or visit your child’s school. And, given that this is TaskRabbit we’re talking about, each employee receives a monthly TaskRabbit stipend to just plain make life easier and get someone else to hang a photo, wait for an important delivery or change 20 light bulbs so that employees have more time at home.
We humans are at our best when we’re creative and evolving. We don’t like repetition or work that goes nowhere, and it’s important for us to feel like we’re part of something bigger than ourselves. While no job is perfect (it’s not called “work” for nothing!) leaders of human companies, the ones who “get it,” provide benefits that support and nurture these human needs.
Which is to say: no offense, ping pong table, but…I’d rather play against my son at home (Daniel IS an amazing ping pong player!)
Director Blockchain | empowering the next billion users to own their money
5 年Ping Pong table in my office hasn't seen me in 6 months. I am grateful I can leave office these days. I really liked how you summed it all up. Thanks for sharing.
Strategist/Writer/Designer | Connecting your message with your markets
5 年I'm more interested in flex time than in games. You can't legislate fun, and group "play time" often produces pressure to participate, let alone perform well, in activities that may be unappealing to (or, worse, traumatic for) some employees.
Drug Development Consultant - Advancing Assets from the Bench to the Bedside
5 年Erica Keswin, thanks for sharing a very insightful perspective on workplace culture. I find the Slack slogan of “Work hard and go home” to be particularly meaningful, especially in today’s age of “work hard, only to go home and do more work”. I too am not in favor of ping pong table perks, as these novelties simply distract from what is really important- an employee centric work culture and foundational benefits. Most important is a solid medical benefits package, ensuring an appropriate work life balance, and providing tools for an efficient and productive workdays (appropriate resourcing, appropriate planning, appropriate prioritization, appropriate technology, etc) so it is not necessary to be working 24/7. For those industries that do operate on a 24/7 schedule, there should be adequate opportunities to “power down and recharge”. What good is a ping pong table when it becomes impossible to disengage from email and meetings during your paid time off?