Ask HN: what are the best non-cash employment benefits you've heard of?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1973572

by andrewstuart • 16 years ago

20 58 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

What are some of the best non-cash employment benefits that you've heard of?

I'm interested in anything really interesting/fun/creative/worthwhile or even the boring stuff like life insurance. If it's of value to you as an employee then it's worth listing.

camz• 16 years ago

As a professional, I appreciate the ability to dress down or in casual wear like jeans a t-shirt. this is forbidden in legal and accounting fields so its basically an unfulfilled dream...unless you work for yourself =D

davidmurphy2• 16 years ago

I agree with you. Happily, it does not have to be this way. In fact, the nation's biggest law firm devoted just to business litigation, Quinn Emanuel, is known for its casual dress:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_Emanuel_Urquhart_%26_Sull...

More firms should follow suit. (Pun not intended.)

param• 16 years ago

A friend of mine works for Maruti(Indian subsidiary of Suzuki Motors). They let you 'buy' a Maruti car and pay the loan installments for you over 4 years. You become eligible for a new car every 3 years or so. If you ever leave, you keep the car, but take over the payments.

After 4 years, the car is yours.

BuddhaSource3• 16 years ago

Hope they are talking any car? 3yrs to be eligible then 4yrs payment. So 7yrs relationship for a car :). Some play the game really well.

andrewstuart2• 16 years ago

I guess Google 20% time is one of the most well known.

die_sekte• 16 years ago

Best I've heard of so far: Working without a fixed schedule. I can't concentrate for a full 8 hours; however, I can work at odd hours and still get things done.

cryptoz• 16 years ago

As a software developer, it means a lot to be working on a powerful machine with at least two large screens, my choice of OS if possible, and a generally nice desk. Most companies provide decent machines, but every place I've worked at required me to run their stock Windows XP (now 7) with Outlook.

The worst part of my day, every day, is managing windows (the application windows) in Windows (the OS). It's terrible. We build Java software that has a web front end. It really shouldn't matter which OS I use to develop (assuming I test in IE frequently), but I'm forced to use Windows. sigh A really really simple thing that many companies could do is to let their software developers have a bit more control over their environment.

ramidarigaz• 16 years ago

Along with your comment about a powerful machine and choice of OS, I'd like to add root access.

I don't have root access on my current computer, and it's a royal pain. For some boneheaded reason, no idea why, svn wasn't installed on it. I had to bother IT for three days to get it installed.

Thankfully, I'm about to get a new box on which I have been promised root. :)

schan• 16 years ago

Free food is the best. It's actually a really strong incentive to get employees to stay at work longer, and who doesn't like free food? Now it is becoming more and more of a standard perk at startups which is a great thing!

anamax4• 16 years ago

I don't like free food.

In most cases, it isn't the food that I'd pick myself and it often leads to weight gain.

pavel_lishin• 16 years ago

I figure that any company that offers free food woudl be willing to listen to employee suggestions.

benmccann2• 16 years ago

We have fairly healthy food. The signs are all labeled green, yellow, or red to indicate healthfulness and there's salad and vegetables every day. Of course no one is going to stop you from going up for seconds if that's what you want to do, but I've found I eat much healthier at work because it's difficult and time consuming to prepare that variety of food and vegetables for a single person. One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.

anamax4• 16 years ago

One of my favorite non-cash benefits is the ability to use the shipping department for my outgoing packages. (I assume that everyone allows delivery at work.)

It's really nice to be able to take your outgoing packages to the shipping folks, give them some money, and have them take care of fedex/ups. It's much better than leaving work to go to fedex, ups, what have you.

Most large companies already have shipping departments, so the only additional fixed cost is the ability to take money from employees.

And, if fed ex/ups/etc have minimums, this helps meet them, so it may even reduce some company costs.

zrail• 16 years ago

> I assume that everyone allows delivery at work.

Not a safe assumption, unfortunately. I had to make a huge stink to not get this taken away last year.

lsb• 16 years ago

1) Shower in the office: makes it easy to cycle to work and feel fresh afterwards.

2) Smart colleagues: for work and non-work conversation.

3) Fridges stocked with healthy food: junk food is cheaper, but leaves you unable to think clearly.

postfuturist• 16 years ago

The place I work now either pays for parking or public transit pass. I take the public transit pass.

iigs• 16 years ago

I am currently in the process of negotiating an employee agreement that limits IP claims to stuff reasonably related to the official line of business, rather than the more normal "everything you think about until you leave belongs to us".

andrewstuart2• 16 years ago

Something that works well here is "everything you think about until you leave belongs to us" PLUS "company will give written permission for you to own IP of any personal/open source project that is not work related, permission will not be unreasonably withheld"

wpeterson• 16 years ago

- Free Drinks / Snacks / Lunches

- 20% Time

- Music/Stereo System in the office

- Work from Home Days (where everyone does)

archangel_one• 16 years ago

I'm not convinced by the music thing. We have music at our office but in practice it rapidly trends towards whatever offends the least people which is normally some kind of "easy listening" dreck. This doesn't seem to work for most people, given that a fair number of us still listen to our own music on ipods or whatever.

I suppose it would be a nice little benefit if the music played was interesting and cool, but I'm not convinced that's likely to actually work very often.

rosser2• 16 years ago

IME, that works a lot better in smaller offices. When there's only a handful of folks among whose musical tastes we needed to coordinate, it was a lot easier. More than that, and I'd just fall back to headphones.

SupremumLimit• 16 years ago

Not everybody likes working with music on, either. I can do it some times but not others, and if I have music on, it has to be something I know/like, otherwise it's too distracting. I had a job where people played music on a stereo and it was frustrating most of the time.

So it's something to be wary of and not a benefit in my book.

kapilkaisare• 16 years ago

mpd or other music servers might be useful for this.

daemin• 16 years ago

Headphones / earphones are always the answer.

Not only can you listen to music with them on, listen to whatever music you want, it's also a bit more of an effort for other people to bug you and take you out of the flow. Of course you can still be interrupted but the barrier is ever so slightly higher.

fookyong2• 16 years ago

I spent 2 months last year working in China consulting for "the Facebook of China" (not actually Facebook).

One thing that I loved about the office - every day at 6pm, caterers would come round with lunch boxes for everyone. Plus soup, plus drink, plus fruit. And every day it was different! (and delicious)

Sure it's a far cry from Google's 5-star catering with 10 page menu or whatever, but I remember feeling super happy every day when the food came round. Everyone ate, chatted, played games for a bit, then got back to work. It was good for lifting spirits.

Edited to add: this was for about 1000 people, every day.

(Of course, this was good for the company too as it meant people stayed that little bit longer at the office)

StavrosK4• 16 years ago

You ate at 6 pm and then went back to work? How long was the workday?

fookyong2• 16 years ago

By 9pm most people were out the door apart from most of the department managers who usually stayed until 10pm-ish.

Coming from Japan, I felt this was fairly normal. Long working hours are part of the culture.

BuddhaSource3• 16 years ago

So just when everyone is thinking of going home they boost the moral & make you stay longer :) But its great it works both ways!

IgorPartola• 16 years ago

Ability to pick which projects I want to participate in. Also, being able to provide and revise estimates (as opposed to having someone with a 10 week management course and a fresh install of MS Project telling me that I should have been done implementing an obscure spec 2.5 days ago). Also, having a boss that understands life circumstances. Also, the option to work from home. Lastly, working on interesting stuff with intelligent and friendly people.

Wow, I guess I've been pretty lucky so far...

sanj• 16 years ago

Free flying lessons -- Avidyne wanted everyone to be a private pilot.

rosser2• 16 years ago

I used to work for a web retailer selling outdoors gear (skis/snowboards, camping, climbing, &c). During the ski season, on powder days, we were encouraged to go play in the snow before showing up at the office. People at their desks before noon when there's fresh on the slopes were often asked what they were doing at work, and executive "going to get a couple runs in" lunches were the norm the rest of the time.

On top of that, we were eligible for significant discounts on season passes to many of the local resorts (in the Salt Lake City area). Between that and the free day passes that were handed out as rewards by team leads, project managers, and the like, it was hard not to get in some serious slope time.

(And, of course, there was the discount on gear...)

daeken• 16 years ago

Nap room. Seriously. I'm often dragging a bit by 3-4PM, between general tiredness and food coma from lunch. I'd love to be able to crash out for an hour or two, and come back to what I'm doing refreshed.

acgourley• 16 years ago

I actually find the the post-lunch coma to be really distracting and wonder if companies could benefit trying to feed their employees twice a day with a light late breakfast and then later light lunch.

jbr• 16 years ago

Pivotal labs does this by offering everyone free catered breakfast at the start of the day. As I understand it, the motivation was to synchronize everyone's lunch hunger so half of a pair-programming team wasn't hungry earlier because they hadn't eaten lunch but their pair had. It also served to mitigate mid-afternoon food-coma somewhat.

davidmurphy2• 16 years ago

Or even 15 minutes (or 5!). (See Power Sleep, by James Maas http://www.amazon.com/Power-Sleep-Revolutionary-Prepares-Per..., or the Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_nap).

When you bike or take public transportation to work, you can't sneak a nap on your lunch break in your car. A nap room would be oh so helpful, and would dramatically aid productivity for sleepy employees benefiting from a power nap.

tibbon2• 16 years ago

Between my experiences at several jobs:

  -In office music
  -In office shower. Somewhere to store extra clothes and items
  -In office kitchen (and a good one at that)
  -Bike rack
  -Basic bike tools on-hand at office
  -Easily accessible set of basic hand and small power tools in office. Stuff happens. You need them. 
  -Motorcycle parking
  -Chair budget. Get what you want/need to work best
  -I liked Pixar's office/cube budget, although I've never worked for them, search for it. 
  -Ability to have whatever keyboard/mouse/display/computer best suited me. Don't make me use the shitty company's logo mousepad if I want something else. Don't force an IDE on me. If I use textmate, allow me to use that. If I'm a vim or emacs guy, allow that. Results matter- not my IDE. 
  -Give me a software budget, or better yet no budget at all. If I want software that is tangentially related to my work, I should be able to get it
  -Massive company library. Geeks love books/knowledge. Being able to take these home is good. Being able to order anything and add to it is even better. 
  -Food and drinks available. 
  -Cabs home if needed- no questions asked. 
  -Ability for me to receive packages at work (that may not be work related). When I have an office I *always* ship my packages there as to not miss them. 
  -I loved being able to do laundry at betahouse. 
  -Encourage and pay for employees going to social events, even if they aren't 100% tied to their daily work functions. Social employees are worth much more.
  -A 'quiet room' where someone can work/study/sleep without being bothered. A nap/dark room is a good idea too if you can fit it space-wise. 
  -Your office layout matters. Think how you position people and how the arrangement of power sits. I liked sitting right beside the CEO at my first startup (and we were 20 people, so this wasn't a given). I count him as a good friend because of this.

But also, don't skimp on basic benefits either. Make sure everyone is financially sound. If someone has something they need bailed out of, let them know you are there. The last thing you want is some employee worrying about the bills from replacing a major appliance that blew up at home. Issue small loans, or better yet, convenient bonuses on a need-only basis. Make sure your employees are healthy. Find out what they actually feel about their health insurance. Most younger employees will not care, but a few will. Listen to them. You want them healthy and happy- their families too. Most companies these days skimp on partner healthcare and no longer support the needs of a family.

Other small things that we miss now in society do matter to people.

  -Anniversaries, birthdays and important dates to that person. Doing more that just posting to facebook is a way to show thoughtfulness. This can just be a card. 
  -Even in politically correct 2010 and with many of us working at home, we do have holidays that we appreciate having noticed. Small gifts are very noticed.
  -Just as you want your employee to go above and beyond, think about how you can go above and beyond for them. This will come back to you.

BuddhaSource3• 16 years ago

That is one huge list :) Sometimes it felt little one sided. But most make sense for big firms.

tibbon2• 16 years ago

I doubt any company could or should do it all. But picking a healthy list of those is useful. I got a huge portion of those between working for gamerDNA and then working at the betahouse coworking loft in Cambridge (but of course not all).

Each company should figure out what is right for their particular culture. Defining that culture in a meaningful way can be rather difficult.

zackola• 16 years ago

Please explain the - In office music bullet. I worked at a consultancy once that piped a local top 100 station over the PA all day long and it drove me mad hearing the same awful songs/advertisements/DJs ad nauseum.

dcaldwell2• 16 years ago

Allowing employees to donate 10% of their work time to nonprofits of their choice. Employees feel like their company gives a crap and helps them feel like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

j_baker2• 16 years ago

This is good, but these kinds of deals are almost always more of a gimmick than anything else. If I work 36 hours and volunteer 4 hours, chances are I'll probably still be given 40 hours of work rather than 36.

dcaldwell2• 16 years ago

Yeah, I suppose it depends on the type of business. If the business espouses the 37Signals philosophy of not overworking employees, then it can be a good thing. If not, then it could just lead to more work.

j_baker2• 16 years ago

I would kill to work for a company that bought decent chairs. I mean, I know they seem pricey, but an Aeron chair is at least no more expensive than the computer they buy me. And it will probably last a hell of a lot longer too.

rdl2• 16 years ago

Having "ops" take care of things you're not particularly good at, or which scale well -- shipping, renting cars, being a 24x7 phone contact, etc.

If your ops department is good enough that people list it as their "in case of emergency" contact number, in preference to family members, you're doing it right. (obviously ops will contact your spouse/etc., but I'd rather have "Ryan has been kidnapped" or "hurt in a car accident in Malaysia" responded to by someone who can actually bring serious resources to bear, vs. someone who will get emotional.)

cperciva• 16 years ago

The best benefit I've ever heard of is Matasano's unlimited books budget. I have absolutely no clue why nobody else (AFAIK) does this. I'm sure it more than pays for itself just by making people more productive, never mind the value to the employees themselves.

dfranke• 16 years ago

Think what would happen if this became widespread. Book publishers start charging exorbitant prices because most of their buyers don't care. Employers push back and negotiate deals for themselves with publishers. Do you really want the book market to look like the US healthcare market?

StavrosK4• 16 years ago

"Unlimited budget" doesn't mean "unlimited spending". I'm pretty sure people would only buy things they needed, so the situation you describe wouldn't happen any more than it does now.

cmos• 16 years ago

We started in an old mansion, and offered a washer and dryer free at work.

amazing results.

gasull• 16 years ago

Nobody has said it yet?

Equity.

rdl2• 16 years ago

If I could get everything else I wanted, I could see giving up equity, especially the amounts common at a lot of companies. Spend 4 years there then be a founder yourself.

wlievens• 16 years ago

Where I live, a company-paid car lease is pretty much standard for every non-junior developer. It sounds decadent and it probably isn't the "best" non-cash benefit one can come up with, but it does bring a lot of value since paying for a car myself would be a significant portion of my income.

bryanlarsen• 16 years ago

WTH? 51 comments and nobody's mentioned vacation time yet? I would take a job with a proper amount of vacation time over a job with the American mandated minimum (1 week) but double the pay. It was different before I had a wife and child, but now, vacation is more important than anything.

2 weeks to visit family at Christmas. 1 week to visit family during the summer. 2 weeks for a proper vacation in Europe or Asia or whatever 1 week for home renos. There's nothing like swinging a hammer for a week to destress. 1 week to create a few extra long weekends to get stuff done, show visitors around the city, et cetera.

total: 7 weeks, which is relatively common for professionals in Europe. Unfortunately, I don't live in Europe.

pasbesoin• 16 years ago

This isn't in the programming domain, nor does it originate in private enterprise, buy my cousin retired at... about 52, from a county health department, with full health benefits through to Medicare eligibility (as I understand it).

They can now work as much or as little as they wish (including in private enterprise), where they wish, on a contract basis, and not worry about health care.

It's not a cash benefit nor one you can buy with cash (other than being wealthy enough not to have to worry about such things), so I see it as a significant "non-cash" benefit.

Recently, they were working in an office where the management and politics were wearing them down. When their commitment ended -- even though the organization wanted them to remain -- they were free to decline and look for something more comfortable.

Ask HN: what are the best non-cash employment benefits you've heard of?

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