Especially within sectors (such as tech) that experience skills shortages or skills gaps, where competition to add scarce talent to one’s team is large, benefits and perks on offer can often be the deciding factor for a candidate to choose one employer over the other.
“To keep employees motivated and simply happy, the little things can make a huge difference”
We previously looked at what the future of work (in 2030) could look like. The prediction is that fighting for the top talent and having to work hard to retain them will become the norm and we can already see now that employers need to create environments that attract and retain this talent within a highly competitive employment market.
What do people really care about beyond their pay? To simplify and put this into perspective: Work is a massive part of our lives. To keep employees motivated and simply happy, the little things can make a huge difference.
Practically, what could you offer your tech hire? Assuming the pay (and bonus) is as per expectations, here are a few things we have found people care about in the markets we operate in which could make THE difference when comparing your job offer to another:
1. Career development
It’s not always a given. While there are the linear lines of career development, there is also a huge element that comes down to business success and growth that will create new and unexpected channels for personal development. Sharing the company’s vision at an early stage can demonstrate optimism and opportunity.
2. Work-life balance
If your employees feel balanced, healthy and happy, they will stick around and do better work. Yes, it’s that simple. Working is important, but health, exercise, volunteering, friends and family are (at least) as important to them.
“It all comes down to ensuring that you can offer something worth working hard for”
Consider each and see if you can offer something that shows that you are aware and care. Some examples are extended lunch hour option to attend fitness classes, flexible working hours, working from home or remote.
If you can, you could also subsidise perks in some sort of way, like paid day off each year to volunteer, gym membership and so on.
3. It’s the little things that count
Everyone loves a treat. So many options: weekly provided lunches, free (useful) promo items, all inclusive travel, parties, Friday night drinks, fresh fruit, breakout toys… the list goes on…
4. Working environment
Here you can highlight the like-minded and friendly people that make up your team, well-equipped facilities, equipment (do they get to choose their work setup or chair), the atmosphere of your working environment (maybe in a collaborative, inspirational setting) – each factor can make all the difference when a potential employee compares job offer A to job offer B.
It all comes down to ensuring that you can offer something worth working hard for.
Benefits in practice
To be able to share how this can work in practice with a real-life example, we’ve asked Matt Hardy, Digital Director & Joint Managing Director at The Real Adventure what they have implemented to attract and retain top talent. Here is the rationale behind what they do and some more examples and thought-starters to help with the question “what to offer?”:
“We take a people-first approach… to create a culture that enables talented people to have the best days of their working lives”
Matt Hardy: “We take a people-first approach, driven by our internally-focused mission to create a culture that enables talented people to have the best days of their working lives. Having that as a guiding principle has allowed us to evaluate our softer benefits to ensure we’re looking after our people.
“Some of the things we do have a positive impact across a broad range of areas and go some way to attracting and retaining talent.
“We offer a physical and mental well-being programme where, among other things, we bring expert speakers into the agency to give regular ‘lunch and learn’ guidance on staying healthy. Every year our employees nominate our charity of the year, and whether they choose to use their free volunteering day every year on the staff-chosen charity, or a charity or cause they are passionate about, the opportunity and choice is there.
“There are also opportunities to work in self-managed, multi-disciplinary client ‘hubs’, so you can learn new skills from colleagues and explore new disciplines, providing the benefits of building greater social capital, enhancing craft skills and ensuring work variety.
There is also funding available for group activities, from our tech club to softball and any other group activity proposals that come our way. If it is doing something great for our staff, we like to support it.
To find out more about getting the best in tech talent for your next recruitment drive, drop us a line!
