Whether something is a “bad idea” or not differs greatly by perspective.
Common startup perks are:
- Free Snacks
- Free Drinks
- Catered Meals (lunch, sometimes dinner and breakfast as well, often free or subsidized)
For example, all those free snacks, drinks and meals add up in overhead costs to the employers, lowering the amount of money they have available to pay their workers and also hire new talent, raising the pressure they put on their workers to perform.
On the flip side, all the free snacks, drinks and meals keep the workers tethered to the office because they can “t afford to buy their own food with the salary they currently get, and they end up providing the work that was wanted.
- New Mac/iPhone/etc
- Paid for Phone Plan
From the employer perspective: all that shiny new computer equipment has a high upfront cost, but the maintenance on it is relatively low, and they “re relatively easy to provision and secure for a company of any size. Likewise, ensuring your employees always have access to internet and phone will give them one less excuse to not work.
From the employee perspective: “Yay! My employer gives me the latest stuff and I can watch Youtube from ANYWHERE!”
- Transportation Subsidy
Paying for transportation is a low cost option that ensures that the employee will always be able to get to wherever you want them to be.
From the employee perspective, they “re thrilled that they don “t have to worry about topping up a metrocard or whatever.
- Flat Heirarchies
This one is difficult from both an employee and an employer perspective – it can be hard to implement well, but solved with hiring properly. You definitely need an experienced senior team in place to get this to work, otherwise you wind up with no work getting done.
Additional Perks:
- “Beer Fridays”
Kind of a nightmare from the employer perspective – the liability involved in willfully allowing your employees to get drunk on business property is too much to contemplate.
On the other hand, from the employee perspective – free beer!
- Group Outings
Generally great from an employee perspective, as they build team bonding and the like. Employers can reap the benefits.
- “Bring your pet to work”
Bad all around. Never ever good.
- Wear whatever you want
From an employer perspective, this can get out of hand. Think toward the day when you have to politely request people to “dress like a human” because we have outside guests coming, and the inevitable reply is something along the lines of “They “re coming to our house, they should respect our space.” It “s a no-win scenario as a CEO. You should set a minimum acceptable dress code for “every day” and “dress up” days that people should be able to clearly refer to.
From an employee perspective, its great. It means they can wear their 20-day-unwashed cheeto-encrusted “Han Shot First” shirt, pajama bottoms and those blue fuzzy bunny slippers they “ve had since college.
- Flexible schedules
- remote work options
This CAN be good from an employer perspective – if you have someone to manage it and a good policy behind flexibility and remote requesting.
This is awesome from an employee perspective, as long as they understand that flexible and remote doesn “t mean “whenever I feel like it.”
As you can see, each of these has their pros and cons, for the employee and for the employer.
Originally Posted: https://www.quora.com/Which-common-tech-startup-employee-perks-are-generally-a-bad-idea
Originally Posted On: 2016-08-07