

Ask HN: what are the best non-cash employment benefits you've heard of? - andrewstuart

What are some of the best non-cash employment benefits that you've heard of?<p>I'm interested in anything really interesting/fun/creative/worthwhile or even the boring stuff like life insurance.  If it's of value to you as an employee then it's worth listing.
======
tibbon
Between my experiences at several jobs:

    
    
      -In office music
      -In office shower. Somewhere to store extra clothes and items
      -In office kitchen (and a good one at that)
      -Bike rack
      -Basic bike tools on-hand at office
      -Easily accessible set of basic hand and small power tools in office. Stuff happens. You need them. 
      -Motorcycle parking
      -Chair budget. Get what you want/need to work best
      -I liked Pixar's office/cube budget, although I've never worked for them, search for it. 
      -Ability to have whatever keyboard/mouse/display/computer best suited me. Don't make me use the shitty company's logo mousepad if I want something else. Don't force an IDE on me. If I use textmate, allow me to use that. If I'm a vim or emacs guy, allow that. Results matter- not my IDE. 
      -Give me a software budget, or better yet no budget at all. If I want software that is tangentially related to my work, I should be able to get it
      -Massive company library. Geeks love books/knowledge. Being able to take these home is good. Being able to order anything and add to it is even better. 
      -Food and drinks available. 
      -Cabs home if needed- no questions asked. 
      -Ability for me to receive packages at work (that may not be work related). When I have an office I *always* ship my packages there as to not miss them. 
      -I loved being able to do laundry at betahouse. 
      -Encourage and pay for employees going to social events, even if they aren't 100% tied to their daily work functions. Social employees are worth much more.
      -A 'quiet room' where someone can work/study/sleep without being bothered. A nap/dark room is a good idea too if you can fit it space-wise. 
      -Your office layout matters. Think how you position people and how the arrangement of power sits. I liked sitting right beside the CEO at my first startup (and we were 20 people, so this wasn't a given). I count him as a good friend because of this. 
    

But also, don't skimp on basic benefits either. Make sure everyone is
financially sound. If someone has something they need bailed out of, let them
know you are there. The last thing you want is some employee worrying about
the bills from replacing a major appliance that blew up at home. Issue small
loans, or better yet, convenient bonuses on a need-only basis. Make sure your
employees are healthy. Find out what they actually feel about their health
insurance. Most younger employees will not care, but a few will. Listen to
them. You want them healthy and happy- their families too. Most companies
these days skimp on partner healthcare and no longer support the needs of a
family.

Other small things that we miss now in society do matter to people.

    
    
      -Anniversaries, birthdays and important dates to that person. Doing more that just posting to facebook is a way to show thoughtfulness. This can just be a card. 
      -Even in politically correct 2010 and with many of us working at home, we do have holidays that we appreciate having noticed. Small gifts are very noticed.
      -Just as you want your employee to go above and beyond, think about how you can go above and beyond for them. This will come back to you.

~~~
BuddhaSource
That is one huge list :) Sometimes it felt little one sided. But most make
sense for big firms.

~~~
tibbon
I doubt any company could or should do it all. But picking a healthy list of
those is useful. I got a huge portion of those between working for gamerDNA
and then working at the betahouse coworking loft in Cambridge (but of course
not all).

Each company should figure out what is right for their particular culture.
Defining that culture in a meaningful way can be rather difficult.

------
cryptoz
As a software developer, it means a lot to be working on a powerful machine
with at least two large screens, _my choice of OS if possible_ , and a
generally nice desk. Most companies provide decent machines, but every place
I've worked at required me to run their stock Windows XP (now 7) with Outlook.

The worst part of my day, every day, is managing windows (the application
windows) in Windows (the OS). It's terrible. We build Java software that has a
web front end. It really shouldn't matter which OS I use to develop (assuming
I test in IE frequently), but I'm forced to use Windows. _sigh_ A really
really simple thing that many companies could do is to let their software
developers have a bit more control over their environment.

~~~
ramidarigaz
Along with your comment about a powerful machine and choice of OS, I'd like to
add root access.

I don't have root access on my current computer, and it's a royal pain. For
some boneheaded reason, no idea why, svn wasn't installed on it. I had to
bother IT for three days to get it installed.

Thankfully, I'm about to get a new box on which I have been promised root. :)

------
lsb
1) Shower in the office: makes it easy to cycle to work and feel fresh
afterwards.

2) Smart colleagues: for work and non-work conversation.

3) Fridges stocked with healthy food: junk food is cheaper, but leaves you
unable to think clearly.

------
iigs
I am currently in the process of negotiating an employee agreement that limits
IP claims to stuff reasonably related to the official line of business, rather
than the more normal "everything you think about until you leave belongs to
us".

~~~
andrewstuart
Something that works well here is "everything you think about until you leave
belongs to us" PLUS "company will give written permission for you to own IP of
any personal/open source project that is not work related, permission will not
be unreasonably withheld"

------
camz
As a professional, I appreciate the ability to dress down or in casual wear
like jeans a t-shirt. this is forbidden in legal and accounting fields so its
basically an unfulfilled dream...unless you work for yourself =D

~~~
davidmurphy
I agree with you. Happily, it does not have to be this way. In fact, the
nation's biggest law firm devoted just to business litigation, Quinn Emanuel,
is known for its casual dress:

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_Emanuel_Urquhart_%26_Sull...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quinn_Emanuel_Urquhart_%26_Sullivan#Firm_culture)

More firms should follow suit. (Pun not intended.)

------
daeken
Nap room. Seriously. I'm often dragging a bit by 3-4PM, between general
tiredness and food coma from lunch. I'd love to be able to crash out for an
hour or two, and come back to what I'm doing refreshed.

~~~
acgourley
I actually find the the post-lunch coma to be really distracting and wonder if
companies could benefit trying to feed their employees _twice_ a day with a
light late breakfast and then later light lunch.

~~~
jbr
Pivotal labs does this by offering everyone free catered breakfast at the
start of the day. As I understand it, the motivation was to synchronize
everyone's lunch hunger so half of a pair-programming team wasn't hungry
earlier because they hadn't eaten lunch but their pair had. It also served to
mitigate mid-afternoon food-coma somewhat.

------
anamax
One of my favorite non-cash benefits is the ability to use the shipping
department for my outgoing packages. (I assume that everyone allows delivery
at work.)

It's really nice to be able to take your outgoing packages to the shipping
folks, give them some money, and have them take care of fedex/ups. It's much
better than leaving work to go to fedex, ups, what have you.

Most large companies already have shipping departments, so the only additional
fixed cost is the ability to take money from employees.

And, if fed ex/ups/etc have minimums, this helps meet them, so it may even
reduce some company costs.

~~~
zrail
> I assume that everyone allows delivery at work.

Not a safe assumption, unfortunately. I had to make a huge stink to not get
this taken away last year.

------
die_sekte
Best I've heard of so far: Working without a fixed schedule. I can't
concentrate for a full 8 hours; however, I can work at odd hours and still get
things done.

------
IgorPartola
Ability to pick which projects I want to participate in. Also, being able to
provide and revise estimates (as opposed to having someone with a 10 week
management course and a fresh install of MS Project telling me that I should
have been done implementing an obscure spec 2.5 days ago). Also, having a boss
that understands life circumstances. Also, the option to work from home.
Lastly, working on interesting stuff with intelligent and friendly people.

Wow, I guess I've been pretty lucky so far...

------
fookyong
I spent 2 months last year working in China consulting for "the Facebook of
China" (not actually Facebook).

One thing that I loved about the office - every day at 6pm, caterers would
come round with lunch boxes for everyone. Plus soup, plus drink, plus fruit.
And every day it was different! (and delicious)

Sure it's a far cry from Google's 5-star catering with 10 page menu or
whatever, but I remember feeling super happy every day when the food came
round. Everyone ate, chatted, played games for a bit, then got back to work.
It was good for lifting spirits.

Edited to add: this was for about 1000 people, every day.

(Of course, this was good for the company too as it meant people stayed that
little bit longer at the office)

~~~
StavrosK
You ate at 6 pm and then went back to work? How long was the workday?

~~~
fookyong
By 9pm most people were out the door apart from most of the department
managers who usually stayed until 10pm-ish.

Coming from Japan, I felt this was fairly normal. Long working hours are part
of the culture.

~~~
StavrosK
Oh wow, you worked 13-14 hours a day? Jesus, when did you live?

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cperciva
The best benefit I've ever heard of is Matasano's unlimited books budget. I
have absolutely no clue why nobody else (AFAIK) does this. I'm sure it more
than pays for itself just by making people more productive, never mind the
value to the employees themselves.

~~~
dfranke
Think what would happen if this became widespread. Book publishers start
charging exorbitant prices because most of their buyers don't care. Employers
push back and negotiate deals for themselves with publishers. Do you really
want the book market to look like the US healthcare market?

~~~
StavrosK
"Unlimited budget" doesn't mean "unlimited spending". I'm pretty sure people
would only buy things they needed, so the situation you describe wouldn't
happen any more than it does now.

------
param
A friend of mine works for Maruti(Indian subsidiary of Suzuki Motors). They
let you 'buy' a Maruti car and pay the loan installments for you over 4 years.
You become eligible for a new car every 3 years or so. If you ever leave, you
keep the car, but take over the payments.

After 4 years, the car is yours.

~~~
BuddhaSource
Hope they are talking any car? 3yrs to be eligible then 4yrs payment. So 7yrs
relationship for a car :). Some play the game really well.

------
bryanlarsen
WTH? 51 comments and nobody's mentioned vacation time yet? I would take a job
with a proper amount of vacation time over a job with the American mandated
minimum (1 week) but double the pay. It was different before I had a wife and
child, but now, vacation is more important than anything.

2 weeks to visit family at Christmas. 1 week to visit family during the
summer. 2 weeks for a proper vacation in Europe or Asia or whatever 1 week for
home renos. There's nothing like swinging a hammer for a week to destress. 1
week to create a few extra long weekends to get stuff done, show visitors
around the city, et cetera.

total: 7 weeks, which is relatively common for professionals in Europe.
Unfortunately, I don't live in Europe.

------
j_baker
I would _kill_ to work for a company that bought decent chairs. I mean, I know
they seem pricey, but an Aeron chair is at least no more expensive than the
computer they buy me. And it will probably last a hell of a lot longer too.

------
schan
Free food is the best. It's actually a really strong incentive to get
employees to stay at work longer, and who doesn't like free food? Now it is
becoming more and more of a standard perk at startups which is a great thing!

~~~
anamax
I don't like free food.

In most cases, it isn't the food that I'd pick myself and it often leads to
weight gain.

~~~
benmccann
We have fairly healthy food. The signs are all labeled green, yellow, or red
to indicate healthfulness and there's salad and vegetables every day. Of
course no one is going to stop you from going up for seconds if that's what
you want to do, but I've found I eat much healthier at work because it's
difficult and time consuming to prepare that variety of food and vegetables
for a single person. One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.

~~~
anamax
> We have fairly healthy food.

I know what it takes to keep my weight in check and it's a small subset of
what is considered "healthy".

> One of my coworkers lost 60 pounds since starting.

Good for that person. Untill I'd done it, I didn't know how hard it is to do.

Yegge says that the typical experience at Google is +10. Is he wrong?

~~~
benmccann
People joke about the Google 15, but I don't know of anyone that actually put
on much weight. I ended up putting on 15-20 pounds, but it was muscle mass
that I was trying to gain, so I'm not sure that counts.

------
rdl
Having "ops" take care of things you're not particularly good at, or which
scale well -- shipping, renting cars, being a 24x7 phone contact, etc.

If your ops department is good enough that people list it as their "in case of
emergency" contact number, in preference to family members, you're doing it
right. (obviously ops will contact your spouse/etc., but I'd rather have "Ryan
has been kidnapped" or "hurt in a car accident in Malaysia" responded to by
someone who can actually bring serious resources to bear, vs. someone who will
get emotional.)

------
rosser
I used to work for a web retailer selling outdoors gear (skis/snowboards,
camping, climbing, &c). During the ski season, on powder days, we were
encouraged to go play in the snow before showing up at the office. People at
their desks before noon when there's fresh on the slopes were often asked what
they were doing at work, and executive "going to get a couple runs in" lunches
were the norm the rest of the time.

On top of that, we were eligible for significant discounts on season passes to
many of the local resorts (in the Salt Lake City area). Between that and the
free day passes that were handed out as rewards by team leads, project
managers, and the like, it was hard _not_ to get in some serious slope time.

(And, of course, there was the discount on gear...)

------
postfuturist
The place I work now either pays for parking or public transit pass. I take
the public transit pass.

------
dcaldwell
Allowing employees to donate 10% of their work time to nonprofits of their
choice. Employees feel like their company gives a crap and helps them feel
like they're a part of something bigger than themselves.

~~~
j_baker
This is good, but these kinds of deals are almost always more of a gimmick
than anything else. If I work 36 hours and volunteer 4 hours, chances are I'll
probably still be given 40 hours of work rather than 36.

~~~
dcaldwell
Yeah, I suppose it depends on the type of business. If the business espouses
the 37Signals philosophy of not overworking employees, then it can be a good
thing. If not, then it could just lead to more work.

------
sanj
Free flying lessons -- Avidyne wanted everyone to be a private pilot.

------
wpeterson
\- Free Drinks / Snacks / Lunches

\- 20% Time

\- Music/Stereo System in the office

\- Work from Home Days (where everyone does)

~~~
archangel_one
I'm not convinced by the music thing. We have music at our office but in
practice it rapidly trends towards whatever offends the least people which is
normally some kind of "easy listening" dreck. This doesn't seem to work for
most people, given that a fair number of us still listen to our own music on
ipods or whatever.

I suppose it would be a nice little benefit if the music played was
interesting and cool, but I'm not convinced that's likely to actually work
very often.

~~~
SupremumLimit
Not everybody likes working with music on, either. I can do it some times but
not others, and if I have music on, it has to be something I know/like,
otherwise it's too distracting. I had a job where people played music on a
stereo and it was frustrating most of the time.

So it's something to be wary of and not a benefit in my book.

------
wlievens
Where I live, a company-paid car lease is pretty much standard for every non-
junior developer. It sounds decadent and it probably isn't the "best" non-cash
benefit one can come up with, but it does bring a lot of value since paying
for a car myself would be a significant portion of my income.

------
gasull
Nobody has said it yet?

Equity.

~~~
rdl
If I could get everything else I wanted, I could see giving up equity,
especially the amounts common at a lot of companies. Spend 4 years there then
be a founder yourself.

------
cmos
We started in an old mansion, and offered a washer and dryer free at work.

amazing results.

------
andrewstuart
I guess Google 20% time is one of the most well known.

------
pasbesoin
This isn't in the programming domain, nor does it originate in private
enterprise, buy my cousin retired at... about 52, from a county health
department, with full health benefits through to Medicare eligibility (as I
understand it).

They can now work as much or as little as they wish (including in private
enterprise), where they wish, on a contract basis, and not worry about health
care.

It's not a _cash_ benefit nor one you can buy with cash (other than being
wealthy enough not to have to worry about such things), so I see it as a
significant "non-cash" benefit.

Recently, they were working in an office where the management and politics
were wearing them down. When their commitment ended -- even though the
organization wanted them to remain -- they were free to decline and look for
something more comfortable.

