Outside-the-Box Perks to Offer Your Remote Employees

By Kaitlin Hurtado on April 14, 2022

Remote work definitely comes with plenty of benefits, but it does cause many employees to miss out on the perks that may often come with a job where in-person work is the norm. Whether your office location offered perks like on-site gyms and cafes, or management allowed for in-office catered meals, many perks that came with working at the office have not carried over to remote work.

Showing appreciation for your employees is always a great idea, so coming up with perks to offer your remote employees can be a way to keep them satisfied and motivated even while working remotely. Keep reading for ideas of perks to offer your remote employees.

Photo: Pexels

Gym memberships, or reimbursements toward gym memberships

Depending on your office location, you may have been able to offer your employees free access to the on-site gym or fitness centers. With remote work, this is a benefit that employees are missing out on. Personal fitness and wellness isn’t just something that benefits your employee’s personal health and life, but a healthy employee can be in a better position to succeed in their daily work.

With that being said, offer the same type of perk to your remote employees. While your employees may be spread out across multiple cities, you can offer free gym memberships or reimbursements on purchases they make toward their fitness and wellness. For example, you may offer paid memberships to gym chains that are sure to be in your employees’ area. Or, you can offer a stipend that can cover the cost of fitness equipment (machines, weights, etc.) that they would want to buy for their personal gyms at home.

Meals 

When you were working together in an office, you may have treated employees to a weekly breakfast of bagels and donuts, or a weekly lunch to celebrate the end of the week. With remote work, this is a benefit you can recreate with a few ideas. One way you can treat your employees with food is by paying for a meal-kit plan to replicate catering at the office.

If you want to treat your employees to prepared meals that are hassle-free, gift them gift cards to a food delivery service that they can use for their favorite restaurants whenever they want, from their lunch breaks to after work when the last thing they want to do is cook a full meal.

Another way you can treat your employees with food is by curating a snack gift basket with treats you would typically find stocked in the office breakroom. Keep your team fueled as they work remotely by offering a stock of coffee, granola bars, trail mix, chips, cookies, and so on.

Home office stipend, or supplies 

Regardless of how long your employees have been working remotely, they may not have the proper home office setup that enables them to reach full productivity. Whether it be using their dining table as a day-time desk or limiting their work to their small laptop screen, not having the proper home office setup can be frustrating and hold employees back from being comfortable throughout the day.

You can offer different products to improve their setup, from a new chair to an additional monitor, but offering a stipend to cover the cost of what they really need can be a much-needed benefit to their setup. Even if their setup doesn’t need a new chair or monitor, you can still offer a stipend to cover the cost of their phone and internet bill, which they are definitely using as they work remotely.

Offer flextime 

Working remotely looks different for every team. Some teams try to follow the regular 9-to-5 schedule they had previously, while others opt to give their employees a bit more room to adjust their schedule depending on their location. Flextime is a policy that allows employees to choose their work schedule outside the one typically used by your team.

Flextime can be an amazing perk for your remote employees as they can adjust their workdays to maximize their productivity while giving them control over creating a better work-life balance. For example, an employee may be most productive when their children are away at school and find themselves struggling to stay on task after their children return home from school and extracurriculars. With flextime, they can choose to start their work earlier in the day and sign off by the time their kids come home.

On the other hand, you may have employees that are juggling classes and a full-time job. Offering them flextime can help them adjust their schedule to fit both priorities.

Remote work comes with plenty of benefits on its own, from no commute to no dress code, but that doesn’t mean you can’t offer more perks to show your employees some much-needed appreciation. Listen to your employees when they speak about what they do miss from working in person at the office — it could give you the perfect insight on how to treat them.

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