Carla Sutherland
5 min read
While employers are reaching for a range of eye-catching employee perks which they hope will improve their Employee Value Proposition (EVP), there’s a whole host of perks which have an actual impact on what’s most important to your employees – their everyday lives.
Sure, having a ping pong table in the break room is great (if you’re good at ping pong!), but truly impactful employee perks are the ones that help employees stretch their income, make their day to day easier and help with life’s unexpected moments.
Luckily, it’s not that hard to put these kinds of perks in place. You just have to know where to look. Let’s take a peek at a few of these everyday perks that can really help your people.
Help improve employee savings where they already spend
As you’ve no doubt heard a million times, there’s nothing certain in life but death and taxes. Immediately after that, we need to eat. The most thrifty among us tend to spend lots of time cooking in the kitchen, but unfortunately, for most of us, we save time by ordering take out or going to our favorite restaurants.
And when the average household in the U.S. spends about $3,500 a year dining out, providing your employees (and their families) with restaurant or meal-delivery service discounts can go a long way to reduce their monthly spend.
On top of food, you can be sure that your employees will be buying clothes – unless you have an extreme dress down policy, of course. A discount here can really help, and you’re right, there are many providers who offer some form of discount at various clothing stores.
The best discounts providers give instant discounts which can be used on top of any sales, offers or promotions running at the time. This ensures a great user experience which means employees will actually use the offering and save money, rather than saying, “Oh, I’ll just use it next time.”
What do you provide in the office?
It's no surprise that Americans love coffee and tea. Help your employees stretch their disposable income (and enjoy their favorite beverages, like a mocha latte) by selecting a perks provider that offers discounts at cafes or bakeries.
Away from that, you can help here by providing your employees with coffee for free as an example of low-cost ways to maximize employees' time. I’m not suggesting you need to put on a full barista experience but a capsule or pod coffee machine can go a long way with your people. Not to mention, it'll save them from paying for their daily coffee.
At Reward Gateway, we’re also lucky enough to have free toiletries in office such as deodorants, hair products, and sanitary products. There’s even back up headphones in case someone forgets to bring their own that day. These are small things in an engaging workplace which help every day and come at a small cost to you, the employer.
Help when life throws a curveball
Life can deliver plenty of unexpected events which might catch your employees off guard. And when that happens, it’s always good to know your employer has your back.
There are many ways you can help your employees here. At Reward Gateway, our employees can ask for a company loan based on their salary which they can then pay back over 12 months. While we do offer financial resources to employees, it’s also important for them to be covered in case of an unexpected cost springs up.
Or, if something happens in an employee's personal or family life, it's a weight off their shoulders to know they get up to three months paid time off to attend to their personal needs and come back to work feeling refreshed.
When considering impactful perks for employees, it’s most important to keep sight on the perks that your employees will actually use, and not just what everyone else is doing. By focusing on your people first, you’ll naturally improve your EVP and deliver a great employee experience, one perk at a time.