They'll overvalue some little things, like the "free pizza in meetings", "childcare discount" or the "airport lounge access", while not paying anywhere as much attention proportionally to the $150k of salary.
That (and tax breaks) are the only reason for employment to give any benefits apart from raw salary anyway. In an economists world, the employee is always better placed to decide what to spend their compensation on, so it should all be money.
People like that stuff because it is like a part time job getting that stuff vetted and set up yourself. Time is money, many don't have time to vet all these health/dental/vision/etc packages on the public market place. Free pizza means you don't have to plan and prep a lunch. Childcare discount might even involve a known good childcare service in the area. Lounge access is great if you like to eat while travelling (and don't want to be saddled with a $15 airport double whopper or that $10 sad looking cesar wrap) or are a booze hound; the whole point of it is that its an infinite buffett of food and booze like a Vegas casino. People get smashed in lounges.
Agreed. Though I recently helped my partner sign up for a bunch of these types of benefits at a new Big Corp job: it took half a day entering the same information in different portals from different providers, plus figuring out if a perk was even something they wanted or could use.
Employers need to start offering a perk where they enrol you in all the relevant perks.
They'll overvalue some little things, like the "free pizza in meetings", "childcare discount" or the "airport lounge access", while not paying anywhere as much attention proportionally to the $150k of salary.
That (and tax breaks) are the only reason for employment to give any benefits apart from raw salary anyway. In an economists world, the employee is always better placed to decide what to spend their compensation on, so it should all be money.