One of the trickiest parts of making sure an office space runs smoothly is managing employee perks and benefits. Perks contribute massively towards company culture by helping your people feel valued. Employee benefits can be anything from flexible working hours and flexible office spaces to a company car, all of which help towards employee satisfaction.
In this post, we’ll take a look at how you can help your office operate smoothly thanks to easy perk management. Whether you’re a small startup or a global enterprise, employee perks are a simple way to help with a positive company culture, boost productivity and look after your people.
What is perk management?
Perk management is the process of overseeing the perks and benefits your business offers your team. From ideation through to delivery, it’s every step taken to give your employees a non-monetary reward or incentive.
Employee perks range from big gestures like company cars and private medical insurance to smaller offerings like gym memberships, more natural light in the office and free perks like healthy snacks in meeting rooms. The best company benefits are flexible and customisable while being light on administrative duties for the business. It’s also important that they’re cost-effective, have high employee engagement and they help increase job satisfaction.
Because of this, a key part of perk management is evaluating their effectiveness. It may be that the smaller perks have a bigger impact on the larger ones – it all depends on what your employees value.
The challenges of managing perks in a London office
Managing an employee perks package in London office spaces can be challenging. The city provides its own unique set of challenges. These include:
- High costs, which means you may struggle to find employee benefits that are cost-effective and competitive, while also being well received by your teams.
- With a diverse workforce, there aren’t likely to be many one-size-fits-all perks out there that the majority of your team will want to engage with.
- Your employees will have evolving expectations, with trends often dictating what is and isn’t desirable.
- Many employee benefits can be time-consuming or complex to manage from an administrative point of view.
- There are legal and tax considerations to be aware of, for example when dealing with a company car, private healthcare or salary sacrifice schemes.
How to make perk management easy
Offering benefits and a range of perks is important to both attract top industry talent and retain your existing employees. It also motivates employees and improves productivity and output.
Thankfully, there are ways to improve perk management so it doesn’t become a major issue for administrators. By streamlining processes, using technology and improving communication, you can make perk management easier.
Some of the strategies you can use to improve perk management include:
- Use a platform that centralises perk management in one place, to make access and management quick and simple. Software like Perkbox can help you save money and streamline your peak system while offering over 9,000 perks, discounts and benefits to your team.
- Offer flexible, personalised and scalable perks, where employees can select the benefits package that means the most to them.
- Listen to your employees and offer the perks that they want.
- Make sure processes and instructions are clearly communicated and offer self-service and easy access so workers can engage.
- Implement automated reminders and notifications so employees can take full advantage of perks.
- Streamline the approvals process, including automatic approvals, so there aren’t delays to employees accessing their rewards.
- Focus on low-cost, high-impact rewards, such as those related to employee wellbeing and health.
- Encourage employees to give peer-to-peer recognition.
- Regularly review your perk offerings to make sure they continue to align with what your team wants and expects.
- Ensure transparency and fairness at all times.
What are some of the best office perks?
What counts as the best office employee perks depends entirely on your people and what they value, as well as your company values. In London, you have to consider whether your employees would get the most out of access to a company car or lease. Or would your London employees, in a city with a notoriously high cost of living, get more out of a regular supply of free and fresh office snacks so they don’t have to worry about healthy eating while at work?
Here are some of the best office perks for employees of London offices:
- Flexible working hours and the ability to work from home is a hugely popular perk, which is especially important if members of your team have to commute from outside the capital.
- Gym and wellness benefits, including mental health support, demonstrate how much you value your people.
- Work environment perks like free healthy snacks and drinks.
- Employee recognition schemes and rewards, where employees can be recognised for going above and beyond.
- Training and development opportunities, including courses, conferences and mentorships so employees can learn new skills and further their careers.
- Parental benefits, such as childcare support and additional parental leave.
- Transport perks, like cycle schemes or travel cards.
A fresh fruit delivery is a valuable and impactful office perk
When you offer a variety of perks to your employees, the administrative burden can be a concern. But, it’s vital that you continue to offer your employees desirable perks to ensure they’re happy, productive and loyal, which helps your office space run smoothly.
One of the most simple but effective ways to treat your employees is through regular and customisable fresh fruit delivery. This provides your employees with delicious and healthy snacks that let them know they’re valued and contributes massively towards a solid perks and benefits offering. It’s also super easy to manage, freeing up your office manager’s time.
Here at Ripe.London, we deliver fresh fruit boxes to businesses all across London. Find out more about our office fruit box deliveries or get in touch to customise a box for your team.
