Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

answers.onstartups.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 50 posts

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#21

Post by yosh »

DaniFong wrote: post #14
tptacek wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not a helpful comment. It only sounds like one. In fact: since nobody on HN would sponsor a "respect-free" or "autonomy-free" or "control-free" work environment, it actually doesn't say anything at all. This is frustrating because there are probably a million things we could do for (e.g.) Matasano team members without having to restructure the business, and I'd love some more ideas.

We are exploring an alternate mode of vacation (one might say, the French model, although not because it is not national) -- in which the company essentially shuts down august till labor day, on top of a couple weeks of ordinary flexible paid time off. We hope that this will enable people to take real vacations (without worries that something really important is happening around the lab), and the lab isn't hamstrung…

Forced vacation isn't freedom. If August isn't a convenient time to take a vacation, and the employee would rather work, let them work and take that chunk of time off at some other point. If taking that time off another time during the year is unacceptable, then your policy simply isn't fair to all your employees.

Where I work even the national holidays are floating holidays, so if I want to work on Christmas that isn't a day off for me, and I can trade that for a day off for any other day of the year.

Especially for travel, it's way cheaper to do so for off-peak seasons, so forcing August or the last week of December etc. when just makes for more expensive vacations. This is one reason why I think the "French model" kind of sucks.

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#22

Post by pagekalisedown »

[deleted] wrote: post #18
pagekalisedown wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only if you throw some fruits in there. As a health-conscious (non-preachy) vegan, I feel left-out otherwise.

[deleted]

Do you take the same attitude with people with cultural dietary restrictions, like Kosher or Halal? What about physical dietary restrictions like allergies, or Diabetes?

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#24

Post by SkyMarshal »

Don't forget to review Dan Pink's talk on motivation:

http://www.ted.com/talks/dan_pink_on_motivation.html

Having said that my personal favorites are unlimited free books a la Matasano, and flexible work environment (working from office or remotely are interchangeable), and flexible vacation policy (several recent HN posts on this).

Completely distributed teams like SpiderOak are pretty awesome, so set up your company to work like that as the default, and have an office people can work/meet in when they want or need, but connect to the servers the same way whether in or out of the office (a universal API, so to speak).

Let me work when I'm most productive, be it 6am to 3 in the afternoon, or noon to midnight, or whatever. Trust in my incentive to care about the company's success (and by extension my own cashflow). I don't even mind a pager in setups like that, as long as it's used for emergencies only and not abused.

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#25

Post by m0nastic »

jeffool wrote: post #6

Depending on your business and your employees? Equipment. I recently worked at a TV station and regularly asked my boss if I could do things like borrow a camera on a weekend, or installed a single game for some of us to play after hours when no one was working. The answer was always "no". That was unfortunate. The camera I kinda get; it could break. But using my computer at work, when no one else is? Seemed relative…

One of the most awful forensic engagements (that didn't involve the threat of bodily harm) I ever worked was for a company who called me in to image the drives for an entire video production department.

Apparently, they discovered that one of their employees, in his spare time, had used one of the editing stations to edit video for his church. When they disciplined him about it, he stated that "everyone else was doing the same thing", which made them panic and decide to treat the whole department as a forensic incident.

I can't think of a more innocuous use of resources than "editing church video in my spare time", but they were all freaked out about it. You'd be surprised what companies worry about.

I had the envious task of imaging ~ 35 workstations (and 2 big-ass RAID arrays) in the middle of the night before employees were supposed to be back in the office the next morning.

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#26

Post by patio11 »

My company had an official holiday -- Company Founding Day -- adjacent to a national holiday every year, turning a 3 day weekend into a 4 day weekend, and required anyone wanting to work on Company Founding Day to get signed permission from the CEO. (Of a 1,000+ employee megacorp.) When customers/vendors complained about a particular employee's inavailability for their needs, everyone could just say "Sir, I'm sorry, there is nothing I can do. It is Company Founding Day."

That costs rounding error next to an employee. Fog Creek-style catered lunches are rather substantially more expensive, but having done them, I think the social benefits to them are pretty awesome. (Company-sponsored dinner, on the other hand, would scare the heck out of me.)

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#27

Post by pagekalisedown »

[deleted] wrote: post #23
pagekalisedown wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you take the same attitude with people with cultural dietary restrictions, like Kosher or Halal? What about physical dietary restrictions like allergies, or Diabetes?

[deleted]

I just wanted to bring attention to fruits as they're not commonly considered treats.

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#28

Post by jeffool »

elemeno wrote: post #19
jeffool wrote: post #6

Depending on your business and your employees? Equipment. I recently worked at a TV station and regularly asked my boss if I could do things like borrow a camera on a weekend, or installed a single game for some of us to play after hours when no one was working. The answer was always "no". That was unfortunate. The camera I kinda get; it could break. But using my computer at work, when no one else is? Seemed relative…

It's less harmless than it than it looks. No is the only sensible answer to both of those questions, purely for liability reasons. If the camera gets damaged while you're out doing a personal project, is it still covered by the station's insurance? Quite possibly not if it's not being used for work purposes. If you download a game it turns out to have a virus in it, where does the liability for that fall? If he'd sai…

I understood my employer's concerns. I hold no ill will for those answers. But I do think that, with the appropriate legwork, those suggestions can give rise to exactly what the OP is asking for.

There's a good chance that the company has access to hardware/software of various types that his employees don't. And there's a chance his employees would like to use it. Would it be covered by insurance if something went wrong? Definitely something to check on. But that phone call is likely free for him, and a potential higher premium may not be too much higher. It's just an idea to consider.

And things like hosting a PC game for people can be very safe. Certainly no less safe than installing a web browser on a PC. It just takes a little legwork to make sure it's trustworthy (like any software you install) and finding a game people like. I suggest it because I find it analogous to going to the driving range. "It's Friday afternoon and there aren't any vital issues. Let's get in a couple of rounds of XYZ and head out."

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#29

Post by rmc »

m0nastic wrote: post #25
jeffool wrote: post #6

Depending on your business and your employees? Equipment. I recently worked at a TV station and regularly asked my boss if I could do things like borrow a camera on a weekend, or installed a single game for some of us to play after hours when no one was working. The answer was always "no". That was unfortunate. The camera I kinda get; it could break. But using my computer at work, when no one else is? Seemed relative…

One of the most awful forensic engagements (that didn't involve the threat of bodily harm) I ever worked was for a company who called me in to image the drives for an entire video production department. Apparently, they discovered that one of their employees, in his spare time, had used one of the editing stations to edit video for his church. When they disciplined him about it, he stated that "everyone else was doin…

They were probably worried that some other employee was making sexually explicit videos, or even worse, videos of child sexual abuse. If that was happening, it might come out eventually. If it came out that the company was also aware that employees were making personal videos, then that's potentially bad PR for them.

Re: What fun and low-cost fringe benefits/perks would you offer to employees?

#30

Post by jeffool »

m0nastic wrote: post #25
jeffool wrote: post #6

Depending on your business and your employees? Equipment. I recently worked at a TV station and regularly asked my boss if I could do things like borrow a camera on a weekend, or installed a single game for some of us to play after hours when no one was working. The answer was always "no". That was unfortunate. The camera I kinda get; it could break. But using my computer at work, when no one else is? Seemed relative…

One of the most awful forensic engagements (that didn't involve the threat of bodily harm) I ever worked was for a company who called me in to image the drives for an entire video production department. Apparently, they discovered that one of their employees, in his spare time, had used one of the editing stations to edit video for his church. When they disciplined him about it, he stated that "everyone else was doin…

Ahah, you poor soul.

I guess the thrust of my argument is that... Employees are trusted with those resources while under employer supervision. ("Supervision"; not that their bosses are over their shoulders, or in some cases even know how to operate it themselves.) But the second that the intent is not approved of, suddenly that employee is suspected of having destroyed everything with an errant keystroke. It's funny, is all.

Post reply on HN