2010 April 21 — Part-time MBA Degree in DC

In one of our classes on Human Capital Management we were discussing employees’ compensation. Obviously, among other things we were touching on all hot topics related to the issue: executive compensation, fair pay, incentives, indirect compensation, etc. Our professor gave us an in-class exercise: we had to get into four groups and come up with as many as possible examples of indirect compensation, aka benefits, in five minutes.

There was quite a wide range of number of benefits the groups were able to come up with in that short time: from 29 to 63. Once we all reported how many items each group had on their list, the group with the largest number of perks read their list to the whole class. Our group did not get 63, however quite a few of the benefits were overlapping. I found this exercise not just hilariously entertaining, but also quite helpful for two reasons. First, it gave us a chance to shift the focus from the $$$ signs to some other things that might be meaningful and effective in employees’ motivation. Second, we got an opportunity to run our imagination wild.

I asked the guy from the winning group to copy their list. So the list presented here is not my personal invention, but rather a compilation of that list and some other ideas that were floating in the discussion. I just put it out here in a raw form, without much editing, so you can get a jump start for your own wild ideas. The original list dwindled from 63 to 55 because some ideas were repeated twice, and some - I just could not read from the handwriting.

Why the list matters? Simply, you could take this to your boss (OK, may be not the whole list ) and ask for introduction of some of those perks or their derivatives into your company. I know it’s a risky business to ask for perks in this economy, but many of those things are actually implemented in some companies. Admittedly, higher levels in organizational hierarchy get juicier pieces of that benefits pie. But hey, it’s worth trying to push some of them down the “food chain” for the benefit of more people in organization. Because, as we know from theory and reality of life, satisfied happy employees usually make better employees, which is ultimately good for the company’s bottom line too.

If you are the boss, you could think of some less trivial (=$$) ways to motivate and retain your best employees. Many of those could be written off as an expense too, instead of paying all kinds of taxes on the base salary.

I also found this book at my local library. Granted, the author had more than just five minutes to come up with creative ideas. Actually it was part of his doctoral thesis, and he has lots of real companies examples in rewarding their employees. If you are a manager looking to motivate your people, this book will be a good source of inspiration and practical ideas, many of which you could put to work in no time.

Anyways, here is the list. Take it or leave it. I realize that it’s a mix of “perks” and “real” benefits, but this only makes it more fun