Employee Perks
The reign of the startup was the ultimate competition for the best office perks. The ‘keeping up with the joneses.com’ was a game that every entrepreneur wanted to play. Dazzled by the twinkling lights of cappuccino makers, free snack machines, and even beer on tap, young, eager workers clamored to come aboard these fledgling corporations. But alas, while this trend has ebbed and flowed, it is now coming to a screeching halt. Workers are no longer wooed by free stuff when their office environment is not anything like the excitement of the break room they are now browbeaten for being in; that is unless they have a meeting. There has been much news in the last year as disillusioned workers have taken to Tumblr and Medium to tell their tales of woe. As the glitter faded on their new positions and the excitement of free doritos wore off, they were left with office perks that didn’t make up for the stunning lack of workplace culture. At least, it was not the culture they expected would come with a steaming hot cup of organic, small batch coffee. What were they missing that had them so hot around the collar? No human resources infrastructure.

HR Infrastructure Is Not Nice To Have, It’s Absolutely Necessary

When your employees need guidance, where do they go? Do they go to you? What if they need guidance around…..well, dealing with you? Right. Are you completely aware of everything you need to do legally and workplace culture wise around creating a good, safe environment for your staff? If not, when will you get to that? Right. How you conduct yourself around your friends and associates should be different than how you behave around employees. Not knowing what the difference is can cost you dearly. Just ask the former CEO of Thinx. She can tell you not having an HR Infrastructure and boundaries with your staff can be an epically bad move.

Office Perks Are Not The Same Things As Benefits

Even a better-than-average paycheck isn’t going to make up for it. It used to be that startups paid decently, threw in great office perks and called it a day. You can’t expect your employees to look at what you offer for non-payment compensation and say that they should count that as employee benefits. Back in the day of dot.com you could skim on benefits. Now, millennials are wiser than their older, wide-eyed predecessors. They want the same kinds of benefits their parents get at larger corporations. They know that free beers on Friday is not going to cover medical expenses or help them save for retirement. Your snacks have gone stale and it’s time you knew it. If you want to attract and retain talent, you are going to have to get your mind around the idea of providing benefits that matter. By matter, we mean really health insurance, possibly retirement and definitely a road map to the future that looks like you care about theirs. The times they are a changin’. Will you change with them?

What You Can Do To Absolve Yourself With Your Workers

Fear not, there is a reasonable, cost-effective way to make up for all those days of anorexic benefits and stouter employees from all the free chow you’ve been throwing at them to try and keep them happy. A PEO just may be your solution to the ‘real benefits’ problem without bankrupting you in the process. A PEO is a better solution than trying to source benefits on your own and definitely better than offering nothing at all. If your employees are leaving you for greener pastures with (better) benefits, this is the solution you are looking for. Which PEO should you go with? Well, that depends on a lot of things. A quick phone call with a PEO broker like PEO Spectrum can help you decide which of the top 2 or 3 out of the possible 700 you should go with. Time and money saved are waiting for you right now. Talent retained will likely follow. With or without free lattes.  

If you’d like to find out more about how PEOs can help you provide great benefits and payroll management at less than you are paying now, contact us today for a free consultation.

Related Posts

Blog

Best Practices: Top 3 Reasons ADP Clients Often Switch PEOs in January

You renewed with ADP and just got your new rates. They undoubtedly went up, but the question is did they go up more…

Read More
Blog

Why It’s Important to Understand (and Negotiate) the Terms of your PEO Contract

We have a current client that used our PEO Comparison Service and found a new PEO that offered better service, a better payroll…

Read More
Blog

5 Tips to Ensure Your Company Is Not Overpaying for a PEO

PEOs provide a cost-efficient way for small businesses to have the HR resources and employee benefits usually reserved only for large corporations. But…

Read More

Subscribe for best practices & industry updates