Regardless of the industry or business, people need to feel valued and appreciated for their hard work. In today’s world, where workforce satisfaction is key to success in the market, offering real perks and benefits is a necessity, not a luxury.

Promoting job satisfaction among your employees by offering them desirable perks and benefits is a great way to encourage them to stay with you. Bonuses and rewards help keep your employees loyal to you because a happy workforce is more innovative and effective.

Therefore, companies are usually on the lookout for perks to encourage positive behaviors in the workplace. Perks and benefits come in many forms, and their effectiveness depends mainly on the industry, the company, its size, and its current position. In this article, we have listed five of them.

What Are Work Perks?

Perks are non-monetary, non-material rewards given to employees who receive these perks in addition to their salaries and wages. These intangible rewards are known by many different names and are used to attract and induce loyalty.

Employee satisfaction is inextricably linked to job satisfaction. Ignoring employee satisfaction will affect employee motivation, commitment, effectiveness, and productivity.

Employers need to fully recognize the hard work of their employees. And that is not easy to achieve. Sometimes comments like “well done” and “thank you” go unsaid. Such remarks can do a lot to boost self-confidence and self-esteem.

This recognition fosters an emotional bond between managers, team members, and the rest of the workforce, and keeps everyone involved, engaged, and inspired. Remember, however, that recognition should be balanced and given only in exceptional circumstances.

Best Ideas for Offering Work Perks

Employers can use a wide range of tools and strategies to win the loyalty of their employees. Here are five key benefits that can help a friendly team thrive.

1. Paid Leave

It’s easy for business owners to think of employees as just another part of the system. But in reality, people are not machines because they cannot work for extended periods without a break.

You are probably already familiar with the term “burnout.” It’s when people put their focus, time, and energy into a single task for too long until they have no energy left to keep going.

It can take quite a while for many people to recover from this and move on. Burnout can be the end of the line for those who lose interest in work and seek a new field of endeavor. And that’s the last thing business owners want because they need employees who are willing to keep working hard.

That’s why companies need to give their employees paid time off to care for their kids or family members. This can be either parental leave, paid vacation, or even time off to take care of their health. Employees can’t maintain their productivity and efficiency if they are tired, sick, or debilitated.

2. Insurance Plans

If you want dedicated & loyal employees, you must support them in every way. Employees who are concerned about their medical care cannot perform reasonably. A worried employee is an underperforming employee.

Insurance policies are a terrific way to show that you care about your employees. Here, you will pay a set amount to cover an employee’s medical expenses. These policies cover accidental injuries, disability, death, and amputation. Dental exams, biometric screenings, and other sorts of medical care fall under such policies.

If an employee becomes disabled or loses the ability to work, the company will pay the person’s salary. Depending on the employee’s needs and desires, a company may offer them short-term or long-term disability insurance. A short-term policy covers an employee for up to six months, while long-term insurance covers a worker’s entire career.

3. Childcare

Contrary to what some companies think, employees are not robots. They have families and personal lives to manage. That’s why you need to offer effective childcare options so they can focus on their work to the best of their ability.

Employers can offer a wide range of services and options to help employees care for their children. One way is to share the cost of child care through subsidies. Offering subsidies is an efficient and relatively affordable way to reduce child care costs.

Companies can pay the subsidies directly to employees with children and let them, as parents, decide how to spend the money. They can also contribute to the cost of a specific care center or even hire childcare specialists on behalf of parents.

Of course, companies that have adequate resources and infrastructure can provide on-site childcare facilities where parents can bring their loved ones to work and focus entirely on the job, knowing their children are safe and healthy.

If a company does not have the money for subsidies or the space for childcare facilities, they can at least offer flexible schedules for parents to take care of their children whenever they want. In other words, they can plan their work around their children rather than the other way around.

4. Stock Options

This is a business that grants its employees the option to purchase shares of the company’s stock at a predetermined price that is usually lower than the market price. This gives employees a sense of ownership in something they helped create. It makes them feel like they are a part of the organization.

By giving employees a share of the company, their mentality changes from “just working for money” to “really caring about the company’s success.” They actually become owners of the company and treat it like one of the founders. They feel more connected to the cause and the other people in the company.

They will be more careful and innovative with the organization’s resources because they do not see the company as a third-party employer. In terms of human resource management, offering shares will improve employee retention because they will be more committed to its future, and will not immediately leave for another, better offer.

5. Cashback

Now let’s move on to another powerful employee perk: cashback. Who doesn’t need to save money on purchases from thousands of stores? Discounts are a great way to show your appreciation to your employees by allowing them to save money on various services and goods.

However, cashback works a little differently. The concept is similar to a discount, but employees receive cash when purchasing products/services from affiliated businesses instead of paying less money.

They pay the total price and receive cash to spend or save. It’s a straightforward, high-value perk that boosts your employees’ morale and attracts new ones.

So instead of receiving partial discounts on goods and services, workers receive cashback equal to a portion of their purchases at certain stores. In this way, they can shop as before, take their family and friends out to dinner, and receive free cash in the process.

For this reason, cashback perks are popular with employees in a variety of industries.

Loyalize offers a “cashback engine” that allows companies to connect their employees through their own platform with a variety of other businesses — nearly 6,500 retailers in the U.S. We provide an API that allows your platform to access actual cashback data, such as initiating purchases, tracking the status of those purchases, viewing the cashback amount, and so on.

Bottom Line

These five solutions are reliable strategies for improving employee satisfaction and productivity, but there’s nothing more motivating than cold, hard cash.

But you do not need to pay for it out of your own pocket. Just find a reliable provider that will give you what you need to connect your employees with thousands of other companies that offer cashback, track them, and provide you with all the necessary information from the first click, to the purchase.

That’s exactly what we do at Loyalize; do not hesitate to get in touch with us today!