Workplace Incentives
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- sephil-1
Where I work we have free fruits and croissants/donuts on Monday.
- I reckon you probably work unpaid late nights and weekends on a regular basis. Do your free Monday thingies make up for that?Continuity
- ernexbcn1
hookers and blow
- Works, too. Ideally, you should get those when you win a Lion for the agency.Continuity
- Continuity0
Big monies and human working hours would be enough for me.
- Big monies to compensate for: clients from hell, account minders who think they're CDs, political bullshit, impossible deadlines and boring projectsContinuity
- omg0
- CincodeMayo0
Best perks (besides health insurance and vacation days) that I've ever gotten with a company were:
1. Free weekly massages (they brought in a chair masseuse)
2. Free healthy drinks/snacks (for days stuck at a desk)
3. Breakfast on Friday's brought in by a different employeeAll pretty small things but they made a big difference.
- God I hate that "breakfast brought in by someone else", 99% of the time it's crap I don't want or someone gets stuck buying crap they don't wantformed
- fourth1
free snacks is great
ping pong - my current workplace has a table and I started playing here. If/when I move on from this place I will look to see if my new job has a ping pong table before salary, vacation, benefits, etc
vacation time. offering more than the standard two weeks. For holidays don't expect me to work between christmas and NYE. Honestly most people don't even use their vacation so it couldn't hurt to offer more.
flexible hours- my current job just wants 8 hours a day. Doesn't matter when you show up or leave. Very nice to avoid traffic or tailor your schedule to your liking. I'm limited because i have a 9am stand up but it's still very nice.
open forum - at my last gig (agency) they told me on my first day that I can question anything. If I had a problem with their process, someone else, if I had a better way, if I didn't like anything they were open to hear it from anyone. Never really had to use it but it was nice.
- jtb260
I met some folks from Zurb and they have some pretty interesting benefits. The thing is their kind of a well paying sweatshop. Which, I think if you know that going in is fine. Seems like they work people there pretty hard. Their fringe benefits are partially about keeping up with the Jones' (Google/Facebook/Apple), but also partially about making it easier for people to live while meeting the demands of the job.
Dry Cleaning: They expect people to be able to dress nicely for clients.
House Cleaning: Late hours so it's nice to have a clean place to go home to.
Catered Lunches: Working on tight deadlines makes it hard to go out and have a good lunch, so they bring the good food to you.
I always appreciated having a way to unwind. So encouraging gaming nights, or ping pong tourney's or whatever was just a good way to build camaraderie.
- transmission0
i'm constantly looking for ideas likes this and some research i read suggested that bonuses, raises or more money doesn't make them happy over the long-term.
i think people want is ownership and creative freedom to experiment and explore. Fuzziest mentioned allotting 10-20% of their time to create anything. That;s how post-it notes was invented. All the major innovative companies do this including Adobe. Look into their kickbox project.
http://www.fastcodesign.com/3042…- Letting your team own their work, and not bogging them down with middle management is something I value pretty highly myself.jtb26
- dbloc0
I just got a standup/sitdown desk
- bogue0
Thanks everyone... this thread re-inforces that we're already doing alot of things right... it also re-inforces that you can't buy little gimmicks without them appearing as exactly that : little gimmicks. Nice work shiny new QBN!
- kona0
I don't know if this will help, but here's a few things I do for my team and some things I've received in the past.
Bi-Weekly design challenges: This can be anything, but mostly something fun not related to work. Once I had them design their own hardhats however they wanted. Then I bought the team OMI:DIY kits. Basically anything to help keep them from being bored with work and full of creativity.
Work from home once a week: To me this is a must for most creatives. As creatives we sometimes need a change in our environment to stay creative. Working from the park, from a coffee shop, from home, the library... wherever, it doesn't matter. My teams enjoy this the most I'd say.
I bought an old Nintendo for the office and we'll play games over lunch every so often.
Free food Fridays. I'll let the team choose what food they want delivered or, I'll take the team out to eat. It's great team building.
- others -
Free coffee/redbull
Dart Board (the real one, not the plastic ones with the plastic darts). They typically aren't as loud as a ping pong or foosball table.
Great office chairs. It really makes a difference.
- Fuzziest0
Allow 10 - 20% of their time in the week to work on whatever they want. Personal project, entrepreneurial idea, sofa fort, whatever. Chances are they are already spending that percentage of the work week doing it anyways, but if you celebrate the successes of it, that time will be more fruitful for them and for the company.
- bklyndroobeki0
flex schedule: under the premise of as long as you get your work done.
- freedom0
Any time I see photos of "creative" offices like Facebook or something like that with video game areas and ping pong, I wonder if anyone actually does work there.
- i worked in an office like that. it rarely got used we were so busy.bklyndroobeki
- omg1
However, I think it would be helpful to know who the people in your company is, in order to drive ideas that would pertain to your culture. Otherwise you'll just drive general ideas that any company should have such as a lunchroom.
However catering to specific employee needs based on their work would probably constitute that "a bit more unusual" suggestion I think you might be looking for because only the people in that particular group may find appreciative compared to the other. Are they creative, salesmen, accountants, programmers, etc...
- omg0
The concept of the "break room" has been redefined in many ways to create that meaningful benefit to the employee so they could step out of the work zone without stepping out of the office. Increasing productivity, pleasantness, appreciation and driving the culture of the company.
- bulletfactory0
equity.
- Irafis1
A f*** good chair.
- cbass990
I walked into work today with someone making eggs, bacon, toast for everyone....