
Ask HN: What are some interesting employment benefits to offer? - quantguy11959
What are some interesting employment benefits a employer can offer aside from the usual 401k with matching and insurance related things?
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muzani
Benefits I've seen people actually take lower pay to join:

Forced leave policies, especially during certain times of the year, everything
goes lights off.

Casual dress code.

Flexible hours, especially in a city with heavy traffic. One company sets
their work hours around when kids go/return from school.

Nap rooms. Or just let people doze off at their desks.

Childcare benefits at the office, so they don't have to worry about the kids
being watched by a psychopath.

Paternity leave (I took about 3 months off at half the hours).

Office toys - pool table, bowling alley, PS4, warhammer 40k miniatures. Nobody
touches them during work hours, but they're prestige items.

Open device budget for monitors, laptops, keyboards, mice, except Mac Pro.

Cover things that insurance normally doesn't - childbirth, wife's childbirth,
death. The actual cost is minimal, but morale bonus is huge. If you have
people doing dangerous jobs, life insurance is a major perk - a lot of poor
people live day-to-day and would be happy just to know their families are safe
without them around.

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passer_byer
Flexible family leave policies that include paternal leave for birth or
adoption. Six months maternity leave with a guarantee she can return to the
same job or a different one with the same pay.

Two weeks paid time off for those who have reserve duty commitments. And the
best one I ever saw was a commitment by the CEO of a privately run $2B/yr
software firm was a commitment to have a job waiting for those on reserve when
they returned from active duty deployment.

~~~
wikibob
> have a job waiting for those on reserve when they returned from active duty
> deployment.

That's the law...

> Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act (USERRA)

[https://www.military.com/benefits/military-legal-
matters/use...](https://www.military.com/benefits/military-legal-
matters/userra/userra-frequently-asked-questions.html)

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captn3m0
Give every employee an expense card and don’t ask questions on where they use
it.

~~~
aquark
What if your auditors ask those questions?

~~~
Aperocky
Give them all 500 pages of records and tell them to find it themselves.

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flukus
An uber eats account with a generous daily limit, it's mostly awful but you
asked for interesting.

You have to keep an eye on the delivery process as soon as you submit the
order, instantly negating the supposed productivity benefit of staying in the
office. Then you've got 8 people getting up to check the door every time the
bell rings.

We've had every type of issue possible with the delivery drivers, they won't
come up the elevator (you have to work past 4 cafe's to find them), they can't
read a map (you have to meet them a city block away), they're late, they have
the wrong order, they don't show up at all, etc.

The environmental cost of all that packaging plus the driver.

The desire to maximize your allowance and lack of dietary information hurts
the waist-line.

And all this for a job in the city with dozens, maybe hundreds of options
within a 10 minute walk. I've worked for another company that kept a kitchen
stocked with lunch meats, bread, wraps, condiments, etc before and that was
cheaper and better.

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raztogt21
A limited matching donation to a charity of your choice per month. You donate
$200 for the Firefighters Fund, you match another $200.

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jackkinsella
A four-day workweek (in exchange for a lower salary) is very appealing to many
programmers.

