New study results released this month have unearthed that three in five employees aren’t satisfied with the rewards and benefits that their current employers offer.
The research, conducted by One Poll for Sodexo, polled 2,000 employees in the UK with one in five also noting that perks on offer weren’t relevant to them either.
Interestingly, one of the incentives that most employees favoured was the ability to buy additional holiday days, followed by supermarket cashback and high street discounts.
25% of those polled said they didn’t actually know which specific perk or initiative would motivate them the most.
What the results tell us about the value of perks
The results of this latest study into the value of perks has reinforced what many managers will already know - perks are not a one-stop shop for cheap and effective motivational gains.
The ability to buy more annual paid leave from the employer could even be seen as quite damning - the top perk 11% of those polled said they’d like most is the ability to forfeit some of their pay to spend less time at their work.
There is also an assumption from companies that they know what their workers want and that can typically be the standard perks which most employees would really come to expect from a reasonable company. After all, a perk should be an unexpected benefit, not something which if you didn’t offer it, employees would suffer either through a lacking convenience or incur extra costs, or if your entire industry offers it as standard already.
After all, with companies such as Dropbox offering its’ staff unlimited holiday allowance depending on work output, being able to buy additional days off doesn’t seem like a great perk at all.
Why appreciation matters
So, with perks struggling to resonate with many employees, management can instead look to their
employee engagement and appreciation plans as a way to maintain and boost motivation within the workforce.
Employee appreciation has a direct impact on a staff motivation, drive and loyalty. In fact, despite US companies spending over $100bn a year on incentive programs, 58% of staff in one study said it was receiving the recognition that would improve their engagement, with millennials, in particular, noting timely if not immediate recognition for achievements as their most important motivational factor.
And it’s not just motivation that matters - so does staff’s overall well-being, for which the value of perks can be limited.
Perhaps the perfect summary for the value of perks in our modern workplace can be derived with a quote from a recent Gallup's Workplace report, which concluded that: “At the end of the day, an intrinsic connection to one’s work and one’s company is what truly drives performance, inspires discretionary effort and improves wellbeing.
“If these basic needs are not fulfilled, then even the most extravagant perks will be little more than window dressing.”
