Perks After the FallThe recession is prompting companies to use benefits more strategically - and discreetly. Dana Carman |
|
 [ 2009-10-09 ] |
If you’ve got it, don’t flaunt it.
The tough business climate is pushing companies to cut costs and slash staff, all the while seeking to increase productivity with fewer employees.
The new austerity extends to company perks. Perks are still around but they’re being used in a more strategic fashion.
Flashy Ferrari-as-signing-bonus perks are out. Useful, tactful spending to motivate employees is in.
“Employee perks are being used more strategically and are more reasonable,” says Elaine Varelas, managing partner at Keystone Partners, a career management firm. “You’re not seeing the perks that got all the attention.”
So foosball tables and masseuse visits to the office may be rarer, Verelas says, but organizations remain interested in offering meaningful extras that can set a company apart and provide value to employees: relocation support, car services for late nights at the office and food service.
“Organizations want people to work more, so they’re really trying to make life easy,” she says. That approach only makes sense as recession-fighting companies seek to up productivity, handling more work with fewer employees.
Jennifer Berman says that she’s seeing and encouraging her clients to change programs to obtain the same results.
Key to success, says the managing director of CBIZ Human Capital Services, is to involve employees in planning. A company might launch a charitable activity, rallying employees around a cause they care about and assisting an organization in need.
“The bottom line is when you freeze hiring and cut staff, you have less people doing more and you need to figure out a way to keep them motivated,” Berman says. “
Trim it to a point. If you’re summarily cutting benefit and training budgets, it’s not very smart. Companies need people to be able to do things they couldn’t do yesterday.”
Berman acknowledges that if a company in dire financial straits must drastically reduce benefits, the manner in which it communicates about the cutbacks will make a “huge difference.”
The goal is to let employees know “we’re all in this together,” says Berman. Giving the employees a voice in the process is imperative.
Little perks that give employees a small boost — free coffee, a weekly Friday BBQ, bagels at meetings — can loom large in tough times.
Varelas says there may be ways for companies to scrimp here, too — exchanging bottled water for pitchers of water, say.
But eliminating small workplace niceties entirely may not be smart. Berman notes that her company’s kitchen is still stocked with candy.
“You have to look at the dollar value of what you’re cutting versus what you’re losing,” she says. “If there’s not money to pay for it, obviously you cut it. But taking away those types of things that are so visible has a much more negative impact than the employer would ever realize.”
Along those lines, celebratory rewards for sales staff are still firmly in place, says Varelas, although companies recognize the need to “celebrate success to keep people motivated without being too flashy.”
In these hard economic times, even the companies that can continue to offer lavish rewards and perks are doing so in lower-profile ways. “There are companies that are doing fine that are still looking at perks and benefit programs,” Berman says. “[They] can’t be seen doing things anymore because it wouldn’t look right.”
Companies continue to need to engage employees, encourage satisfaction and productivity — especially with smaller staffs — and attract and retain prime talent, all the while keeping an eye not just on costs but also on appearances.
Neither Berman or Varelas sees the squeeze on perks and the interest in projecting a frugal corporate image as a long-term trend.
When the economy rebounds, the free coffee will flow again.
Are you aware of substance abuse in your workplace?