
How startups can compete with big company perks - ericmsimons
http://esft.com/how-startups-can-compete-with-big-company-perks/
======
jtbigwoo
The trouble with this is that he suggests all these things that are imitations
of what big companies do. How about doing something that there's no way a
company like google would do?

\- Close the company. Maybe your company just isn't open for two weeks in
December or nobody has to work on Fridays during the summer. Nobody feels like
they're falling behind and everybody gets a break from each other.

\- REALLY flexible working arrangements. There was a story on HN about a small
broadcaster that allowed an employee to go surfing whenever the waves were
really great. Maybe somebody is really into Phish and gets a day off every
time Phish plays a show within 500 miles or gets time off to go to March
Madness if their favorite team gets in.

-Real choice in offices. Small companies often move several times in their early history. Look for opportunities to involve employees in office decision-making and let them arrange and decorate their own work areas.

-Real support of their outside lives. This one is two-fold: 1) make sure your employees have time to have lives outside of work, and 2) support those activities. Sponsor the your employee's kid's boy scout troop or let your employees use the office for gaming after hours. (Don't be creepy about it if they don't want company involvement, though.)

~~~
_delirium
> nobody has to work on Fridays during the summer

Not sure if you're already meaning to refer to it implicitly, but fwiw
37Signals does this. They work 5-day workweeks October-May, and 4-day
workweeks May-October.

~~~
minimax
Makes even more sense when you consider that 37 signals is located in Chicago
where winters are brutal (yay polar vortex) and summers are _awesome_.

------
ericabiz
My goal as a startup founder is to make life simpler for my employees. I've
been running companies for the past 12 years--at first, I was stingy with
employee benefits, before I figured out that giving good benefits helped keep
employees around. (Seems obvious in retrospect!)

Here's my current running list of what I do for my employees:

1) Fully-specced new laptop every 2 years. Our CTO just specced a
nearly-$3,000 Linux laptop from System76. My assistant and I have Macbook
Pros.

2) Full coverage health care 100% paid for by the company, including
dependents.

3) Free cell phone; we pick as a team. Currently we are all on Galaxy S4s from
T-Mobile. I also gave a paid-by-the-company phone to my CTO's wife (she's
helped us out around the office quite a bit as well!)

4) Company will pay your Internet bill at home (within reason; most of us have
$70-$100/mo bills from Time Warner.)

5) High-end monitor + cables to plug your laptop into at the office.

6) Nice chairs. We get Aerons. I have had my most recent batch of Aerons for
nearly 7 years and have moved them halfway across the country and they still
look new.

7) Standup desk if you prefer (we currently have 3; 2 by Geekdesk and one I
bought used from another startup founder--I use the latter one.)

8) Free snacks, drinks, and coffee at our office.

9) For executive staff, a company credit card so you can pay for parking,
snacks, etc. if you're out without having to deal with expensing items.

In other words, I get my employees whatever they want and the company can
afford, within reason, that takes the burden out of them having to pay out of
pocket or go without the latest technology.

I'm always willing to add more to this list, but it has to be because my
employees want and would use it.

~~~
SDGT
1) Fully-specced new laptop every 2 years. Our CTO just specced a
nearly-$3,000 Linux laptop from System76. My assistant and I have Macbook
Pros.

So thats a Clevo chassis (p157SM?) with the full 32GB loadout, multiple SSD,
15.6" 95% gamut screen, 780M, top of the line i7 haswell.

Has he/she figured out the switchable graphics part yet? I've got a Sager with
the 8970M and have horrible problems with getting the dedicated GPU be treated
correctly.

On another note regarding the price: What on earth merits that setup if you
get new boxes every 2 years?

My Sager was $1500 with the GPU, wifi card, screen, and (16gb) ram upgrade.
There is NO way this thing will be deprecated in 2 years.

~~~
ericabiz
> On another note regarding the price: What on earth merits that setup if you
> get new boxes every 2 years?

If your company has revenue and/or funding (we have both), an extra
$500-$700/year is nothing if it makes your employees happy. Something I've
learned from experience.

------
RogerL
I have a very different idea: don't expect your employees to be at the office
18hrs/day so that they need catered meals, home cleaning, dog walking, and so
on. What a horrible, horrible life these "perks" imply. For example, walking
my dogs is the best part of the day, not a chore to be pawned off to a
service.

Edit: to be clear, I'm referring to the perks in the article, not in the
comments. Most of the comments are great.

~~~
ericmsimons
Author of the article here. I don't think many people enjoy doing their
laundry or cleaning their apartment. I also think most people enjoy free food,
as it saves them money. The dog walking perk I can understand, but beyond
that, are you legitimately stating that you wouldn't want any of these perks
free of charge?

~~~
jaggederest
> are you legitimately stating that you wouldn't want any of these perks free
> of charge?

I'd much rather have the money in lieu. It's not 'free of charge' since it's
still costing the company.

------
bane
I'm at the point where a decent market rate salary, with generous
health/dental/eye benefits, 401(k) matching and ample vacation and sick leave
is more than enough to keep me around. But screw me on my annual raise and
it'll trigger an immediate job search, period. I consider keeping up with
inflation the bare minimum raise, an actual raise should at least beat
inflation.

I really don't care to eat catered food, or dry cleaning, game rooms or free
massages or half a dozen other perks that startups are known for. If they have
those things, that's cool, but I know too many places that skimp on salary,
vacation days, insurance in favor of "cheap" perks like a twice a month in
office masseuse.

At my current place, about 60 people

\- individual health insurance is 100% covered.

\- matching 401(k) up to 7%

\- 20 days of vacation, can carry over 100% of remainder year to year. Some
people from the early days have so much accrued that they're taking some well
deserved multi-month vacations.

\- fairly standard sick leave, I forget what it is, 80 hrs per year I think,
doctor appointments taking less than half a day don't count

\- 11 holidays, all are floating so we can take them whenever we want (meaning
effective vacation days are 31, but you may have to work on a national
holiday)

\- flexible work schedule.

\- free gym membership (a healthy workforce is a productive workforce)

\- various public transit benefits that make taking public transit effectively
free

~~~
codegeek
" too many places that skimp on salary, vacation days, insurance in favor of
"cheap" perks like a twice a month in office masseuse."

This. Even though it can be aruged that it is probably harder for startups to
match big co. salaries, 401K etc but they should at least be honest about it
and not just throw these "perks" out there. I mean things like dry cleaning,
dog walking, massages are more like "nice to haves" than "really great to
have". Would I rather have a 7% 401K match ? You bet.

At the end of the day, Cash is king. Give me that and I will shut up as an
employee. Don't shortchange me on things that matter like a decent salary,
401K, health benefits etc. Now being a founder/co-founder, totally different
story.

~~~
bane
I _do_ understand sometimes that at a startup you have to think about lower
salaries and such. And while I think catered food and such are cool. I would
definitely trade it in for a proper raise structure and other, more meaningful
benefits.

I have a number of friends who work at another startup that caps pay below
market rates and instead of pay raises gives them equity. Some of them started
right out of college and now, 6 years later are making the exact same money.
Sure they have loads of options, but if the company fails to sell it won't
matter in the least. Of course in the meanwhile they've enjoyed the other
typical startup perks that cost the company some fraction of what a proper
salary would.

------
nawitus
Here's some free perks that a startup can provide: remote work, flexible
hours, no to open-plans, freedom to use any software/OS the developer wants
to.

~~~
jonnathanson
_" no to open-plans"_

And best of luck to small startups looking for affordable and scalable office
space without open floor plans, especially in the Bay Area. I'm as opposed to
open plans as anyone. But they're usually a necessary evil for a company
trying to keep its burn rate under control. Doubly so for a company trying to
keep burn under control while simultaneously growing quickly.

~~~
nulltype
Oculus Rifts for every employee! Virtual private office!

~~~
onedev
In that case better double down on the Vision insurance....

------
bonemachine
Yecch.

Everyone knows (or ought to know) that the value of most of those perks has to
be offset against _something_ in the company's budget. (Namely: your
paycheck[1]).

(New) startups shouldn't try to compete 1-1 with the handful of already
stupendously successful startups on these items.

Far better to offer something the big boys _can 't_: like actual
_responsibility_ (the kind that by definition, always comes with the act of
taking on substantial risk); _real_ challenge; and an opportunity (and
expectation) to not only see, but contribute strategically to the _whole
picture_ \-- including things like business strategy, shaping the company's
hiring & general social culture, etc. Not to mention things like decent office
space, lack of bureaucracy that's inevitable in any large organization, etc.

Those are what I call _real_ perks -- not free massages, a treacly beer keg,
or mediocre sushi (half price after 4p!)

[1] Actual _benefits_ , like health insurance and paid training, are an
entirely different matter of course. In these areas, the employer contribution
(at scale) has a decisive leveraging benefit (i.e. generally providing more
than what the employer could for herself out of pocket, dollar for dollar).
But most of these fashionable "perks" out in startupland have dubious benefit
at best -- and most of them I'd happily trade for the (implicit) negative
offset in walking around money that goes with them.

~~~
saryant
> Far better to offer something the big boys can't: like significant
> responsibility (that by definition, always comes with the act of taking on
> substantial risk); real challenge, an opportunity (and expectation) to not
> only see, but contribute strategically to the whole picture -- including
> things like business strategy, shaping the company's hiring & general social
> culture, etc. Not to mention things like decent office space, lack of
> bureaucracy that's inevitable in any large organization, etc.

This is what I enjoy the most about working for a young startup. In my current
job, I'm the first hire at a TechStars company. I have the freedom and
responsibility to get things done and take on challenging tasks. I don't have
a lot of experience on paper so the opportunity to take on this level of
responsibility is huge for me personally and far more important than free beer
or whatever.

------
normloman
How bout just treat employees well, pay them fairly, and give them autonomy.
That's all anyone really wants. Nobody takes a job for the free dog walking.

~~~
gms7777
Speaking of employee benefits w.r.t. dogs, I had a job for a year that let me
bring my dog into the office as long as no one in the office (anonymously) had
a problem with it. My dog would lie at my feet and sleep for the entire day
basically. I found that on the days I brought him, I was more relaxed and
productive, and at lunch, we'd go on a nice walk instead of my usual work
through lunch at my desk. Also I was able to stay longer hours if I wanted to
since I didn't have to run home to take him out at 6pm. It was awesome. I'd
definitely sacrifice some benefit/salary difference to have that again.

Edit: Spelling/grammar

------
sown
I wonder how much demand there is for child care as a perk. At places I worked
at -- admittedly, much larger companies -- childcare and transportation
benefits were two of the biggest ones.

~~~
Fomite
In some places, its huge. I know some people in DC who would give their left
arm for subsidized child care.

~~~
sown
That's about the reaction people around me had -- if the company were to give
up day care, people threatened to quit.

------
soup10
Offer challenge, responsibility, and the ability to work with a team
significantly more competent, productive and unhindered by bureaucracy than
they could at a big company? Seems like competing directly on salary and perks
with a (rich) big company isn't going to work out well.

~~~
emgeee
A lot of large companies seem to be able to offer enough of these qualities as
to make salary/perks a deciding factor. For all the bureaucracy of large
companies, they can also provide the resources and connections to get things
done a startup couldn't possibly hope to do, and that is a form of freedom in
and of itself.

------
luu
Everyone has different reasons for their choices, but speaking only for
myself, none of those things matter much to me. Here's why I'm currently at a
big company instead of a startup (and I've done the startup thing in the past,
so I have some idea of what I'm missing out on):

1\. Research-y projects. Big companies have the resources to place long-term
high-risk bets on research projects that will probably fail. Some startups
have a single such high-risk bet, but you can't just decide to work on
whatever crazy idea you come up with because the company can't really absorb
your salary for years if the bet doesn't pay off.

2\. Really broad scope. One cool thing about working at a startup was that I
could do whatever I wanted as long it was relevant to the startup. In fact,
that was the biggest reason I went with a startup just out of school; I would
have been some tiny cog on a giant team at a big company (that's not
inevitable, but that's what the offers I personally had entailed). But I now
have enough credibility that I can go off and do whatever I want at a big
company. Since the big company has a much larger scope than a startup, there
are many more things I can work on.

3\. Resources. At the startup, I could take 100 machines to run an experiment
and it wasn't a big deal. If I wanted to use 1000 machines I'd have to get
people to ok it because I'd be eat into resources that were necessary for the
company's operation. Now, if there's something I'm curious about, I can run a
map reduce across the entire internet.

4\. Relaxed environment. The vast majority of my team is married with kids, so
the office is deserted by 5pm. There are a couple of folks I've seen stay late
for a week or two to hit some deadline, but that's like one or two weeks out
of the year. The startup was one of the most relaxed startups I've ever seen,
but there were still month long crunches of 50+ hours/wk as some emergency
came up. In principle, a startup could be as relaxed as a big company, but
that's extraordinarily rare. At the big company, one of the most respected
people in the office casually remarked to me that he's been at negative
available vacation for all but his first two weeks at the company (and he's
been here for seven years). At the startup, the most respected people all lost
vacation every year because pushed up against the vacation cap.

5\. This should really be like 25 or something, since it's not in the same
league as the others, but I'm making a lot more money than I was at the
startup.

Don't get me wrong -- there are a lot of advantages to being at a startup, and
I'm glad I spent a good chunk of my career at one. I'm just saying that
there's a lot I'd have to give up to go back to a startup, and the things on
that list don't even make the top 30.

~~~
rfnslyr
Wow that's awesome. I work at a big bank and we have none of those things.
Everything is shit and I can't wait to leave.

Our mobile development environment is a locked down internal Windows XP laptop
that doesn't let anything in or out, so we had to write our own tools to
package code to leave the laptop.

We wrote a simple little "chat" client in Node, but before sending the code
off, it was packaged into a .jpg, and unpacked on the other side (my
development macbook). This is how we've been dealing with code for over a year
now.

Shit pay, 0 resources basically. Can't wait to leave.

~~~
bane
I've had a few jobs that were similar, but I ended up loving them.

Pay was good, resourcing was terrible, but the problem sets were really
interesting and overcoming the technical challenges to get work done kept it
interesting.

~~~
rfnslyr
Haha, you are certifiably insane. When I do a job, I expect not to pay much
attention to my setup. I want to spend max 2 days to setup my environment then
never touch it again.

------
mathattack
The best perks for a very small startup are the ones that don't scale, because
then Twitter can't copy them. For better or worse, serving lunch scales.
Laundry service scales.

What doesn't scale?

\- Find out what your employees REALLY like and make it part of the culture.
Tofu of the month club. Concert tickets for Mongolian mandolinists. The key is
this taps into people's personal identity, and helps the team bond. It is VERY
hard for Google to copy things like this.

\- Hire much better management. Google can no longer give large chunks of
equity to new managers. A small start-up can. Outstanding managers (which are
very hard to find, and need to be hunted just like outstanding programmers)
will find a way to keep the best employees by challenging them and keeping
them engaged with the work.

\- More autonomy. A small company can say "Use your judgment on expenses" and
"Give it your best guess on new technology" much easier than large companies
who have to worry more about cross-organizational consistency.

These are all very hard to copy.

------
tomasien
Somebody start a company that integrates all these services in to an API for
perks and let's employees choose what they want and then the company pays for
them. That's what I was doing before a stronger passion called me, but the
problem was real and getting beta customers lined up was as easy as I'd ever
had it.

~~~
rpicard
I think that's what Uncover is doing:
[https://www.uncover.com/](https://www.uncover.com/)

~~~
ztratar
This is great -- why have I never heard of it before?

~~~
criswell
I hate to think of how many awesome things are out there that I'm unaware of.

~~~
twic
Especially since one of them might be a really effective way to become aware
of awesome things.

------
vikas5678
I've worked for 3 very early stage startups before I joined my current
position at a pre-IPO company. My previous company also grew to a 300 person
company when I left for my new job. Few observations -

1\. I will never again work for a very early stage startup. The equity grant
given in exchange for the reduced salary(compared to larger companies) and the
long hours are just not worth it.

2\. Small perks like helping with chores, catered food, etc don't matter. I'd
rather take a break for an hour and eat outside and go home at a normal hour.

3\. "Loyalty" and "Commitment" are empty words, companies have none. They do
whats in their best interest, you should do the same.

4\. Startups more often than not tend to be poorly managed, and it can be
frustrating dealing with it.

5\. Startups with excessive hierarchy are the worst.

------
eli
I think the most significant benefits are the ones an employee can't simply
buy for him or herself.

For example, we offer an extremely flexible leave and vacation policy. It's a
great benefit because it's good for employees, good for the company, and it
doesn't "cost" anything!

Better, are the ones that big companies can't really offer: like being part of
something that's rapidly growing and evolving and knowing that you can have a
significant impact on the entire company. Personally, I think seeing something
_I_ did make a difference is one of the most important factors in job
satisfaction.

------
rdl
The biggest "free to the company" perk a company could offer me is great
package shipping/receiving during the day, and ideally, use of the company
mailroom at cost to ship personal packages. But receiving inbound Amazon
packages so I can collect them at the end of the day when I go home would be
more than enough.

The other perk I care a lot about is parking. Even better, parking for 2+
cars, so I can leave a car at the office when I don't drive in (public transit
or whatever), and stuff like leaving a car at the office if I'm out of town
for a week. (company motor pool cars, even if it's just a couple old Suburbans
or a Prius or something, would be fine for this too. Or a zipcar or
bmwdrivenow site if they're close.)

(the other thing I want is an office, rather than open-plan, and either a
secured enough space that I could leave $5k on the desk in cash without worry,
or physical security in the form of a serious locking door or office safe; but
those are to be productive, so they're not really perks)

~~~
twic
> But receiving inbound Amazon packages so I can collect them at the end of
> the day when I go home would be more than enough.

I have never worked anywhere this was not possible. But then, i have never
worked in a really big (big enough to have its own campus) company. Is this
really not allowed in some places?

> The other perk I care a lot about is parking.

Me too - but in my case, bike parking. At the moment, i have to lock up to a
stand in the alley outside my office; which is _just_ tolerable (the stands
are solid and the alley is fairly busy). A secure place to lock my bike up is
not just a perk, it's actually a requirement for me to take a job.

~~~
rdl
It's more an issue in a small to midsized company with badly run mail and no
actual receptionist; it's inappropriate to receive a high volume of personal
mail when it distracts someone who isn't officially a mail handling person
every time fedex/ups/etc. comes to the door. Also sucks if packages go
missing. I've been in both kinds of places.

I really like the secure bike lockers as an option for this, unless people
have private offices where they could also keep bikes.

------
diziet
I used PeopleFood for our catering and it changed how we eat food for the
better. We also used Homejoy (good experience) to save time.

------
ttruong
Don't forget AnyPerk for employee discounts:
[http://www.anyperk.com](http://www.anyperk.com)

------
suyash
Or you can think about it this way "If you don't work for the company that
provides all these perks, you can spend $280.00 out of your own pocket and get
the same benefits". You can still work at other companies just make sure
you're compensated for all these perks.

------
seivan
I need to have creative freedom in both design and features. So far I have
none, I'm a code monkey with a bunch of Photoshop, UX and "Project Director"
goons taking shots.

None of them can actually build the end product nor work in the medium.

------
dabent
I left a rather dull bank job to cross the country and join a startup. For
those running statups, here's why I joined, what didn't matter and why I left:

WHY I JOINED

1\. Lack of bureaucracy. Granted, I worked at an exceptionally bureaucratic
bank, but I longed for a place where I could just _do_ something without
having 10 meetings to ask permission from people who weren't qualified to
decide if the project was valid or not. Projects that could have taken months
took years.

2\. Benefits. The startup not only paid 100% of my health insurance premium,
they offered great insurance. That's a big deal in the USA. I had a child who
had a hospital stay. It cost me $100 out of pocket and would have cost tens of
thousands otherwise. It was like having thousands of dollars added to my
salary.

3\. Relocation. They paid for movers to pack and ship my goods directly. I
didn't have to mess with reimbursement or advances. If you're looking to get
the best you can find from across the country, this can be a big deal.

3\. A new language/challenge. I had started writing code in Python and loved
it. It was a refreshing change.

4\. Smart people. I can honestly say that the startup I worked for had the
smartest staff of any place I've worked. It was intimidating at times, but I
learned a lot in a very short period of time. I ended up touching a lot of
parts of the system that I didn't have much experience with and it was a huge
learning experience that will benefit me for the rest of my career.

5\. Great hardware. I felt like I finally had enough horsepower on my
development machine to actually do my job. The default was a well-equipped
Mac, but other developers could choose what they needed.

6\. A great location. This is less important, but was an attention-getter when
they made me their initial pitch. Santa Monica, across the street from the
beach/pier. I'm not sure how it could have gotten better.

WHAT DIDN'T MATTER

1\. The salary. I actually took a pay _cut_ if you factor in the cost of
living. I don't regret that decision.

2\. Foosball table. Some people liked playing on a break during some very long
hours, but I honestly just didn't get it.

2\. Free food. They went all-out with the snacks and didn't hesitate to order-
in food on our frequent late-nighters. I got fat.

WHY I LEFT

1\. The hours got way out of control. I knew there would be overtime, but it
became far beyond what I could sustain. The startup went through a tight spot
and we all pitched in to rebuild the site three times in less than a year.
I've heard that the hours have leveled off and sometimes wonder if I shouldn't
have stayed.

TL;DR: Hire the best, give them the tools and environment to get their job
done. Make relocation a no-brainer and health insurance (in the US, at least)
best-in-class. Make salary competitive, but don't get in a bidding war with
other companies. Offer the best location you can, and above all, don't burn
people out.

------
lnanek2
Nothing particularly tempting to me, but it was refreshing not seeing those
startups that just offer group massage coupons and crap listed at least.
That's more like spam than a benefit.

------
asah
office snacks.

<ad> My company specializes in upgrading the snack kitchens to the quality of
Google, which we're uniquely qualified to do, as the #1 sourcing agent for
them, Virgin America, Whole Foods and 10,000 other shops and groceries.

[http://bbfdirect.com/office-snacks](http://bbfdirect.com/office-snacks) </ad>

~~~
sweis
Hey Adam. I didn't realize BBF delivered. Is there a minimum order size?

I've been ordering from Costco, which is convenient but has a limited
selection.

~~~
asah
Steve, great to see you here! We started delivering back in the fall, and
overnight, it's become an inspiring list of customers.

There's a minimum delivery per order to amortize the hidden costs of picking
and packing, but we can match almost any budget by ordering for a few weeks at
a time.

We'll send samples.

------
teh_klev
I'm 46 years old, yes probably a bit of a crumblie here, but don't get me
wrong I love the energy that startup's have, I've been there (.com #1) and
have done that, and would do it again.

But even when I was in my late 20's during .com bubble #1 (~1996-2002), I just
wanted to be paid a decent wage for my skill set, I wasn't interested in
"equity", "perks" and all that nonsense. I just wanted to bank money.

At the time I worked in Edinburgh, next to nice bars and decent food outlets.
Yes there was partying and fun (but we also worked hard 12-15 hours a day),
but it was on our time, and our dollar (or pound), and when we chose how to
party and how much to spend doing that, it wasn't the startup's time and money
or their idea of "fun", it was our hard earned cash, we spent it how we wanted
(or not).

I hated that artificial...."startup fun" with pool tables, free drinks, meals
etc. At lunchtime I (and my teams) wanted to go for a pint, eat a lunch that
wasn't decided by the company, and you know, have free-will, and free
conversation, outside of the constraints of the startup lunch room, where the
founders were lurking all the time, listening in.

I didn't (and still don't) care about perks like laundry, or housecleaning, or
in-house meals, healthcare, etc, just pay me properly and let me decide on
these things. I'm (and was already back then) a grown up. I am able to make a
sandwich for myself, I can wash my own clothes, and hoover and dust my own
flat, when or if I wanted to.

I like, and have always liked, doing housework once a week (even in my early
20's!), I turn on BBC Radio 4 and listen to catchup radio (Any Questions,
Westminster Hour, From Our Own Correspondents, etc) and it's peaceful, calming
and helps me get away from work for a few hours, and I can reconnect with the
_real_ world outside of IT, and then return to the bubble hopefully informed
about real things that matter to real people.

So, in a nutshell, pay your employees properly, let them decide what their
perks are from their salary. All tha perks do is create a work camp in
exchange for hard cash, pay your employees properly so they can decide when or
if they want their laundry or house cleaning done, or where they wish to eat.

The more I hear about SV startup benefits, the more it creeps me out, so
please, fuck off, stop becoming a developer nanny state at the expense of
paying your employees a proper and fair wage. Also, to the young devs out
there being sucked into this nonsense, seriously, start thinking for
yourselves and stop enslaving your lives to these faux perks. Demand to be
paid fairly and put cash in the bank, forget the foosball table and free
drinks, it's a distraction.

ps: WRT to your employer providing, say, dual 24" monitors, a PC with i7 CPU
and a decent chunk of RAM with SSD. It is not a perk, it's the tool you need
for the job. The guy who is out on the road doing AA/RAC/Green Flag to fix
your puncture for a fraction of the money that you earn is running around in
at least $90-$100k worth of truck and tools. Why should your "startup"
employer consider $2k - $3k worth of computer, which is _your_ tool, a perk.
You deserve no less than a wobble free desk, a chair that doesn't give you
blisters on your backside after eight hours solid sitting and a computer that
you don't want to throw out the window or brain your manager with.

Edit: bit hazy on my age back in .com #1, but the sentiments remain the same.

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BuildTheRobots
oddness... I would have thought the best thing a startup or small company (or
any company) could do is treat it's employees like real actual individual
people rather than them being a warm body filling that job title.

I've had experiences with a number of employers and also tried managing both
groups of kids and devs so I'll share my thoughts (kids are easier).

Everyone has to eat. The easier you make this for people the better; apart
from anything else hungry brains don't work properly so it's the company that
looses out. A small kitchen including a microwave, toaster and fridge should
be bare essentials. Make sure you have knives, cutlery and bowls/plates;
potentially more if you have people working silly hours (eg enough facilities
to knock up a plate of food). Don't baulk at supplying a minimum of
tea/coffee/sugar/milk, nice water and potentially snacks too. If people are
using the milk too quickly for whatever reason, it's really simple; buy more.
Previous places have done Pizza Friday (weekly, monthly or quarterly) which is
always nice. It brings the entire office together which is great for getting
to know colleagues and amazing things can happen when distant arms of the
business sit down together over food.

Be easy with timekeeping and have some sympathy for the length of people's
commute. This isn't possible with all roles, but my current contract doesn't
have start/finish times or even an amount of hours in it -and it's amazingly
liberating. Lots of our people have silly commutes (I'm driving for about an
hour and a quarter) but I don't think anyone has a stressful one. Everyone
(who's in) tries to get in before 10am (we never schedule meetings earlier) so
people arrive between 7-10 and tend to leave some time around 4-8. If you get
stuck in traffic and end up running late then it's annoying but it's not
_stressful_.

With the right team, this seems to work extraordinarily well. People are happy
and healthy and personally invested in doing a good job and take pride in it.
When a deadline looms, something serious breaks or even if you've just got
happily engrossed in something interesting then no one bats at eyelid at being
in the office at >10pm. We have an on-call rota, but most people have set up
personal alert systems so we get notified when we're not holding the phone
-it's a matter of pride and respect both to our customers but also to each
other. -tldr: bosses often expect people to work late but all is doom if
you're not at your desk ten minutes before your official start time.

It's very distancing and disjointing to know you can't put anything down (from
thoughts in a notebook, spare laptop charger, _my_ selection of random cds and
usb sticks), basically make provision for future and be able to find it in
weeks to come. I think physical carries across to the mental too; my brain
finds it easier to resume from where it left jobs at home time when my general
workspace is in the same state in the morning. At the very least people should
be given a locker or a set of draws they control, especially if they're out of
the office for periods of time. In technical roles I find hotdesking and hot-
computering sucks more balls than imaginable; it's awful to the point where I
actually used "sucks more balls" on HN. Oh, and if you have to refuse me local
admin rights (and even if you don't), give people a couple of VPSs in a safe
DMZ that they have root (and snapshot/rollback ability) on.

Open office culture can be fantastic (your mileage (or relevancy) may vary),
but please don't think I mean stick everyone together in a big echoy room
where you can't hear yourself think. If you're working on a laptop then really
it shouldn't matter where you're doing it so make sure people get just as good
wireless at their desk as in the office next door, the quiet room or outside
next to the pond. Open culture should mean that no one is afraid to ask
questions and that no one takes questioning personally and is willing to
explain anything. If you're having a meeting or discussion (that isn't
specifically private/privileged) then anyone is welcome to sit or wander in,
listen and ask questions or offer explanations. Everyone gets to put forward
their best ideas and then you pick them all apart with everyone else and
hopefully all come to a consensus. Personally I love it when people see flaw
in my 'obvious' ideas well before I've tried implementing them and then
explain exactly why it sounds great but here's the key you missed -or simply,
it's nice to know we've got each others backs. All this relies on good people
and good leadership, but when dev, ops, networking and even sales and
management are all on the same page then great things will happen.

Night/Shift workers: If you're a 24/7 operation then you've got people that
work even odder times than the rest. Night and shift workers (I've seen 7-7 is
relatively common and people end up out of sync with the rest of the business.
Make sure they don't miss out when people get fed or when the office comes
together -these are the people keeping stuff going when everyone else is
asleep or enjoying weekends; imho it deserves more respect than is usually
awarded to it.

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ycmike
This is an excellent post.

