Keeping your employees motivated and dedicated to your business is vital. There are many ways you can keep your employees motivated and get the most out of them, such as promoting a good company culture, employee recognition and employee benefits.

Employing employee perks that can benefit and help your employees can help to boost their productivity and keep them engaged with your business and their work.

But what kind of perks do your employees actually want?

Essential employee benefits and perks

There are some essential employee benefits that you need to provide to your staff. For example, the National Employment Standards (NES) requires that you give full-time employees four weeks of paid annual leave per year.

Other essential benefits include things like your employee’s wage. The Fair Work Commission sets a minimum wage that you must pay your employees. However, some businesses choose to attract top talent by offering higher salaries.

A lot of businesses also offer their employees insurance, such as medical insurance, life insurance, or disability insurance.

Other types of employee benefits and perks

To attract the top talent and retain them in your company however, you need to offer other perks to your employees. Something that shows them that you care about them and value them as a person.

Everyone is motivated by different perks, for example some people are wholly motivated by money, so you could offer incentive programs and bonuses to your employees. Whilst other people in your company will care more about learning opportunities.

Other perks that employees look for include:

• *  Letting your employees have their birthday off

• *  Allowing employees to additional time off

• *  Paid sick days

• *  Office perks, such as coffee and tea facilities, and food treats

• *  Good pension plans

• *  Employee development plans

• *  Flexible working hours and/or working from home options

• *  Employee discounts

• *  Gym memberships or wellness programs

• *  Offering a varied range of events and activities (i.e. work parties, social clubs, etc)

• *  Stock options or equity

You need to make sure that your employees want whatever perks you choose to give them, otherwise it won’t help to retain and motivate your staff and you will lose money and talented employees.

What kind of employee perks do your employees actually want?

Of course, the only way you will know what kind of perks your employees want is by asking them. Create a survey or a poll where your employees can provide you with feedback regarding the kinds of perks they want.

Some of your employees will be parents so they might be more interested in childcare vouchers or flexible working. Lifestyle spending accounts let employees decide how to invest in their well-being; click here for more information. Whilst other employees might care more about company culture and having a good time with co-workers, so you could install a beer dispenser in your office and run weekly social events.

The best way to cover everyone’s needs is by having a vast selection of employee perks, that your employees can pick and choose from.

Remember that employee perks are only one way you can motivate and keep your employee’s engagement levels high, there are also other ways you can keep your staff engaged and focused.