You know that the satisfaction of your employees is crucial to you as it contributes to your company’s overall success. Most design firms make the mistake of relying only on huge salaries to satisfy their employees. Do you know that employee satisfaction takes more than a good salary? So, what are some of the benefits you should offer to your design firm employees? If you want to tap and keep the best talents out there, consider extending the following five unique benefits to your design firm employees. Yes, what you bring to the table is very important.
1. Onsite and Insurance Health Benefits
You know that you are legally supposed to offer insurance health benefits to your employees. However, the design companies who want to keep the best talents go on to take care of their employees’ health at the office. You can put up an onsite well-being hub where your employees can access a registered nurse for health services or a massage therapist for general well-being. Yes, massage can make your employees more productive as they feel fresher after the massage. Employees can indeed make their own arrangements for massage services, but there is nothing wrong if you do it for them.
2. Plenty of Paid Time Off
If you want to motivate your employees, you have to give them plenty of paid time off. Well, your design firm has indeed scheduled time off for your employees, such as vacation time. But do you know that this is not enough? It is essential to give them off time for small matters like birthdays and bonus vacations, especially during the last week of December. If a matter of urgency arises, you can manage your employees from home. Also, design firms that value their employees give them a fourth-week vacation every year after they have worked for a design firm for four years. For your design company to be successful, you must have a proper employee work-life balance.
3. Insider Buying Benefits
Sometimes you have to allow your employees to purchase shares of your company if they feel that the company is doing well and that their investment will offer a return on investment. Insider buying is a legal undertaking done by executives and employees, especially when they feel that the public is not valuing the company’s shares properly. Did you know that allowing insiders to purchase the company’s dividend can signal an opportunity for the public also to buy stock? There is no reason why the public cannot have trust with your company as long as your employees have confidence in it. As much as insider buying is a benefit to the employees, it’s also a benefit to the design firms as it signals trust to the public.
4. Retirement Savings
If you want to have a stable employee benefits program, you should consider retirement savings. Most design firms offer pension plans for their employees; however, if you’re going to be unique and the best, you should offer retirement savings. Here, you discuss with your employees the amount that will be going to their salaries and how much you will be limited to their retirement savings account. If you don’t include retirement benefits for your employees, your workers will always suffer after retirement. Several types of research have shown that most workers don’t save on their own. Therefore, guiding your employees on how to save the little they get towards their retirement goals is not only necessary but also a sign of goodwill.
5. Employee Share Option Scheme
Allowing your employees to acquire a stake in your company, since that is where they work, goes a long way in motivating them. This is possible if you come up with a share option scheme which provides shares to the employees of the company where they work. Some of the design firms have used this strategy, and it has worked in motivating their employees as well as retaining them. If yours is a start-up design company, you can grant your employees to buy a specified number of shares in the future at a current fixed price.
Overall, a design company’s employee benefits are not a requirement, but they are a recruitment and retention tool. If you want your employees to stick around, you have to use the benefits explained above. You will eventually find that they work for your firm as well as for your employees.