We may see a broader range of perks for remote workers as the effects of the pandemic continue to influence different industries.
As the economy reopens, business is shifting to accommodate a new working with tech leading the way. Startups vie for top talent through robust and unique benefits, and now, those benefits are shifting to reflect what remote workers discovered during the pandemic.
According to Crunchbase, the latest round of benefits include perks like stipends to set up a home office, flexible hours, and budgeting for even more mental health resources.
Companies are also shifting budgets to accommodate team meetups where team members can meet not only to discuss business but bond, work on team building, and release stress. These unique benefits allow startups to compete for top tech talent and could lay the foundations for companies in other fields to do the same.
Employees are quitting rather than return to the office
More tech jobs are now remote-qualified, as many as 30%, according to Dice. And there’s a growing contingent of workers who would rather quit than be forced to return to the traditional office framework. These two facts are related.
Employees want to know that their positions are disruption-proof and that flexible working hours in tech aren’t a passing fad. Companies are adjusting to the reality of a distributed workforce by reimagining collaboration, teams, and morale.
Morale can be tricky. Without face-to-face collaboration, team members can feel isolated and unsatisfied with their position. With fluid budgets for meetups, companies help rebuild the chemistry team members have while allowing employees to retain flexible or remote hours.
A past RTInsights article noted that this challenge in collaborating impacts the hiring process, and many companies are seeking technology solutions.
“As soon as you remove the city filter for job postings, you get a lot more inbound requests because there are people across the globe who want to work for your company. This creates a need for tools and technologies to be able to handle these kinds of incoming requests.”
The article continued: “How do you filter for the right candidate? How do you give equitable resume reviews to the plethora of candidates that are coming in? In most companies, the hiring process is collaborative. A candidate would likely be interviewed by someone in human resources and several other people. Those involved need a way to collaboratively discuss and evaluate each candidate.”
Traditional companies follow tech industry lead
Tech companies and startups lead the way for the future of work, but that doesn’t mean more traditional won’t take the hint. Companies of all kinds discovered the pains of shifting to a different work setup, but many also discovered reductions in overhead costs for maintaining buildings and improved employee satisfaction.
In time, we may see a broader range of perks for remote workers or flexible hours. As the effects of 2020 continue to influence different industries, it might change the way we think of “the office” altogether.
