If you want to attract the very best employees to your startup company without blowing all of your capital on salaries, you have to offer them something more valuable than the money they receive in their paycheck at the end of each month. Tech companies offer staff stock options as a matter of course, but if your company operates on a different model, this may be not especially attractive.
Studies show that for most workers, the benefits and perks offered are a major factor in helping them decide where they want to work. At Twitter, perks include on-site acupuncture while Google employees get chair massages twice a week and free haircuts. Such over-the-top perks may be beyond your reach but are plenty of ways to put together an attractive package for new workers that won’t break the bank.
Flexibility
While access to better health, dental and vision insurance tops the list of the most desirable benefits, the ability to work flexible hours, to work from home on occasion and more vacation time also score incredibly highly.
The advantage of the first two is that they can actually end up costing your company less, helping to boost your profits. If not all your staff are going to be in the office at the same time, you don’t need to have such large premises, and it will cost you less to run. Employees who work from home also spend less time commuting which means they get less tired and are able to be more productive during the hours they are working.
Give added value
You can also extend your basic benefits package to your employees in order to give them coverage in additional areas, especially those that will only come into play should the worst-case scenario come to pass. Examples include travel insurance for vacations, access to a highly-experienced personal injury attorney in the event of an accident or benefits such as disability insurance.
While the chances of claims being made in such areas are relatively low, the peace of mind and reassurance they provide to some employees – especially those with large families – can be enough to help them make the decision to take up employment with your firm rather than any other.
Retirement benefits
While many of the youngest recruits to your business will be a long way from retirement, they will still be keen to know what contributions you are willing to make to help secure their long-term futures. While in previous generations were more likely to stick with one employer for many years and therefore were willing to take whatever retirement benefits were on offer, workers from today’s generation are far more discerning, especially as they are likely to move from one company to another over the course of their careers.
One way to leverage this in your favor is to offer to match a larger proportion of your employees’ contribution to the retirement plan but only after they have logged a fixed amount of time with your company.
