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

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

#41

Post by tptacek »

rdouble wrote: post #15

Proscribed fun is hard. I can think of about 20 great engineers who would be turned off by a scotch library and free trips to the driving range (is it software for country clubs?) Substitute any of foosball, ping-pong, beer kegs, red-bull, razor scooters and whatnot. You're only going to please half the people, half the time, and probably the wrong people, because who really ever liked razor scooters and nerf guns, a…

We would generally be happy to consider sending people to a class. But I don't think we're too different from a lot of companies with HN presences in that we're staffed mostly with people who enjoy figuring things out for themselves. It's hard for me to think of a class that's so clearly valuable to our team that it would make sense sending people to.

One thing we try to do is to run internal classes. We had one on C programming that I need to get back up and running; we have a long-running one with cryptography.

Businesses routinely do the equivalent of paying a grad student to teach machine learning; they just don't call it that. In the real world that's called consulting.

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

#42

Post by tptacek »

DaniFong wrote: post #40
tptacek wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This works for some businesses and not for others. Most successful YC companies, for instance, cannot simply shut down for the entire month of August. In others, teams are so tightly coupled that the business wants vacations as synchronized as possible. It all depends. The important thing to remember is that there is almost always some degree of freedom withheld by vacation policies. It's not especially productive to…

Most successful YC companies, for instance, cannot simply shut down for the entire month of August. In others, teams are so tightly coupled that the business wants vacations as synchronized as possible. It all depends. We're certainly in the latter category, so this is an important distinction. I do think groups in product organizations have this freedom where operational groups don't, though something similar may be…

I'm not sure it takes an efficient market for candidates to be able to do a simple math problem. The company that offers 4 weeks vacation a year pays a $90k salaried employee the equivalent of $51.10/hr; the company that offers 6 weeks vacation pays $53.50/hr, or 5% more.

Comp clearly isn't the only reason people pick jobs, but it's a big reason.

There's a "quality of vacation" point you're making, but generally I think the real issue there is that employees are pushovers, and ask permission to use all their vacation time all at once, instead of just informing their employer that they're going to take July off.

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

#45

Post by rdl »

tptacek wrote: post #9
bugsy wrote: post #4

1. Respect 2. Autonomy 3. Control None of those cost money yet so few workplaces value them since disrespect, micromanagement, and industrial era style division of labor are addictions of the corporate management crowd. It's gospel to Ivy League educated and Old Money. As a separate issue, "As startups, we can't really offer top-dollar salaries to our employees." is complete nonsense. First of all, "we don't pay top…

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.

Your Amazon thing is awesome and something I plan to copy.

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

#46

Post by bugsy »

tptacek wrote: post #42
DaniFong wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most successful YC companies, for instance, cannot simply shut down for the entire month of August. In others, teams are so tightly coupled that the business wants vacations as synchronized as possible. It all depends. We're certainly in the latter category, so this is an important distinction. I do think groups in product organizations have this freedom where operational groups don't, though something similar may be…

I'm not sure it takes an efficient market for candidates to be able to do a simple math problem. The company that offers 4 weeks vacation a year pays a $90k salaried employee the equivalent of $51.10/hr; the company that offers 6 weeks vacation pays $53.50/hr, or 5% more. Comp clearly isn't the only reason people pick jobs, but it's a big reason. There's a "quality of vacation" point you're making, but generally I th…

Myself I pretty much don't do jack shit in any given hour of the year, so I guess companies that would hire me at those rates are getting ripped off since they aren't getting anything for their money.

On the other hand, over the period of a year, I am amazingly productive and product thousands of times more value than the typical engineer.

Interestingly, the less down time during that year, the fewer incredibly valuable things I make.

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

#47

Post by bugsy »

bugsy wrote: post #46
tptacek wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it takes an efficient market for candidates to be able to do a simple math problem. The company that offers 4 weeks vacation a year pays a $90k salaried employee the equivalent of $51.10/hr; the company that offers 6 weeks vacation pays $53.50/hr, or 5% more. Comp clearly isn't the only reason people pick jobs, but it's a big reason. There's a "quality of vacation" point you're making, but generally I th…

Myself I pretty much don't do jack shit in any given hour of the year, so I guess companies that would hire me at those rates are getting ripped off since they aren't getting anything for their money. On the other hand, over the period of a year, I am amazingly productive and product thousands of times more value than the typical engineer. Interestingly, the less down time during that year, the fewer incredibly valua…

It's a bit frustrating to see very insightful contributions like my comment here downvoted. Downvotes isn't meant to be for good points. Let me make it more explicit though for people who have difficulty understanding things.

ENGINEERS THAT CREATE THE THINGS YOU SELL DO NOT CONTRIBUTE BY THE HOUR. THEY CONTRIBUTE BY THE QUARTER, THE YEAR AND THE DECADE. HOURLY WAGE CALCULATIONS ARE THE WRONG WAY TO CALCULATE HOW MUCH THEY ARE PAID BECAUSE THEIR FUNDAMENTAL UNIT OF TIME ISN'T THE HOUR. WERNER VON BRAUN DIDN'T DO ANYTHING NOTICEABLE IN ANY GIVEN HOUR OF DESIGN WORK.

What does this mean in practice to the MBA set? It means that measuring engineering work as cost per hour means there is something seriously wrong with your company because you don't understand the fundamental nature of the work.

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

#48

Post by yosh »

DaniFong wrote: post #39
yosh wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 is…

Question: have you experienced both models, or are you just guessing? This isn't meant to condescend -- I'm just truly curious. The trouble is twofold -- two or three weeks of paid time off, while standard, isn't enough for people to have significantly different experiences in their lives. Furthermore, if the business is still running, then many people will have to continue to work through their vacation. (as is curr…

Weekends are forced vacation too. It'd be great if companies adopted a "floating weekends" policy too, for the same reasons I outlined, but no company I've come across seems to do so, officially (you do see unofficially here and there bosses who recognize an employee working the weekend and allow them to take a couple days off later, and simply not reporting the vacation).

As to your first question, yes I've experienced both. Not month long shutdowns, but week long ones, but it's the same thing: if it's not convenient for you to take a vacation during that time, it's pretty much a waste and it sucks. If your spouse doesn't get 4 weeks off on August, are you going to go on a 4 week vacation then? Probably not. But then you'll resent the people who do actually take that 4 weeks off to go somewhere. It's bad for morale.

I agree that a solid 4 week vacation is enriching, but just declaring an arbitrary 4 week shutdown is a cop out. Fix the structural problems that require every one to be in the office at once, and then give everyone that much vacation time to be used when they like it. I'm not saying that this is easy to fix, but if you really believe in giving people time to have significantly different experiences in their lives, this is what you'd have to work at.

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

#49

Post by DaniFong »

yosh wrote: post #48
DaniFong wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: have you experienced both models, or are you just guessing? This isn't meant to condescend -- I'm just truly curious. The trouble is twofold -- two or three weeks of paid time off, while standard, isn't enough for people to have significantly different experiences in their lives. Furthermore, if the business is still running, then many people will have to continue to work through their vacation. (as is curr…

Weekends are forced vacation too. It'd be great if companies adopted a "floating weekends" policy too, for the same reasons I outlined, but no company I've come across seems to do so, officially (you do see unofficially here and there bosses who recognize an employee working the weekend and allow them to take a couple days off later, and simply not reporting the vacation). As to your first question, yes I've experien…

Thank you, this is really helpful.

I am afraid, though, that I can't imagine how our company can work effectively without at least some people in the physical lab at the same time. I will meditate on this.

In the meantime, I will think about how to give people an alternative plan of time off while still being effective.

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

#50

Post by argeron »

acgourley wrote: post #5
mkramlich wrote: post #3

1. be neutral about where work gets done 2. be neutral about when work gets done 3. be neutral about how work gets done

Recognizing everyone has their own patterns and giving them the autonomy to maximize work given their own patterns is certainly important. Of course step 0 of this prescription is hiring someone who is trustworthy and self-aware.

I completely agree, and that is why we will have a completely web based system so that I can hire contractors all over the U.S. and let my normally onsite employees work from home a day or two a week. Instead of me saying, "Work at home tomorrow", they will choose the day and I will OK it. Obtaining input from employees makes them feel valued and important. Besides, I trust that they will know when it's OK to work at home.

I also plan to ASK each person what a good reward would be (everybody is different), and make sure to thank them. I understand that it's their job, but it goes a long way to boosting everyone's morale and productivity by saying you appreciate them.

A friend's boss wanted to buy her a small token of appreciation for successfully completing a huge project, and my friend jokingly said she wanted a Hummer. The boss bought her one - a diecast collectible H2, and 6 years later my friend still says that was the best gift she's ever gotten :)

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