Your employees are your most valuable asset. This year, more people have been thrust into remote working than ever before. When they were in the office, it was easy to offer perks like free snacks, flexible working schedules, Food Truck Friday and more. But now that everyone is spread out, perks take a little more personal of a tone versus the group activities they once were.
Here are a few ideas of some great perks you could offer while your team is working remotely to let them know you’re thinking of them.
Subscribe to an employee recognition system
Did you know that 89% of employees believe that targeted recognition contributes to their workplace happiness? By taking the time to say thank you and recognize each employee’s contributions, you have the opportunity to not only up employee happiness, but build relationships with your team by seeing all of the good work happening around you.
At Kin, we use Bonusly as a way for our team to do peer-to-peer recognition. It’s hard for us to know every single good thing happening across the company as leaders, but our team members see it. Through Bonusly, they’re able to recognize each other and provide micro-bonuses. Those micro-bonuses can be redeemed for gift cards to popular retailers or can be cashed out using PayPal.
Whenever a micro-bonus is delivered, it alerts the entire team in our general Slack channel. That way, we can keep a pulse of all of the cool things our remote workers are doing throughout the week.
Reduce prescription drug costs.
The cost of healthcare is constantly rising, and for many families it’s a source of frustration. Providing high-quality and affordable healthcare as an employer can be one of your best ways to attract and retain employees (after you check other cultural boxes, of course). But it doesn’t stop there.
Great insurance doesn’t cover everything, especially when it comes to medication. Companies like GoodRx are trying to solve that problem by helping to lower out-of-pocket costs on prescriptions for remote workers.
Prescriptions through GoodRx are often under $10, beating out the $15-20 co-pays many insurance companies have. The best part? It’s 100% free to employers and employees, and is accepted at 70,000+ pharmacies throughout the United States.
Provide a wellness program
Insurance is important, but overall wellness is key to remote-working employees leading healthy and happy lives both inside and outside of work. More and more wellness companies are taking the hint and popping up with incredible programs that incentivize movement among your team – whether in the office or not.
While we’re cooped up at home during quarantine, movement has become something that isn’t as plentiful as it was before. By offering different wellness programs that inspire your remote-working team mates to get up and moving, you’re likely helping them feel better about themselves, their work and their overall outlook on life.
Companies like Sonic Boom Wellness even provide apps that have fun challenges such as activity streaks. When someone does at least X minutes of activity for a certain period of time, they can earn rewards such as $100 added to the HSA or cash back into their paycheck.
Provide a monthly home office stipend
If home is your workplace, it should be as comfortable as possible to be productive in. Employers should be invested in creating a great work environment just as they would do if they had an office.
Companies such as WebFlow provide monthly stipends to be used on home office supplies for remote workers. Webflow gives $380 a month to each employee to help them cover things like a new chair, keyboard, desk or their internet and phone bill. You could use the money on anything from a new chair, to a new keyboard, to a new desk or to cover your internet and phone bill.
The bottom line is the more comfortable an employee feels in their work environment, the more productive they’ll be. It’s up to us as employers to get them there.
What are some other perks that you offer your remote working employees to keep them engaged, happy and productive at home?