What makes a Best Workplace?
Is your benefits package competitive enough? This is what you’re up against.
A tight labor market has forced companies to get creative. And employees are loving the benefits.
A Doctor in the House
Four percent of Inc.’ s Best Workplaces take health care a step further by employing onsite medical providers. For some, that’s easy: Steven Lee, co-founder and chief science officer of the Chicago-based Visibly, also happens to be an optometrist, which makes free eye exams for his workers pretty simple. Klein Hall, an accounting firm in Aurora, Illinois, has a life coach for one-on-one employee support and an outside therapist. (No word on whether all 22 employees would use the same therapist—which could, of course, create some serious drama.)
Life’s a Beach—or Mountain
At Invoca, a Santa Barbara, California–based analytics company, employees take weekly walks to the beach. The enterprise software startup Podium sits at the base of the Wasatch Range in Lehi, Utah—and its famed light powder. That’s reason enough for the company to purchase season passes for staffers to the nearby Snowbird ski resort. When the powder is deep— perhaps the accounting department does the calculation— entire departments hit the slopes before coming into work.
No Health Care? No Way!
Only 1 percent of the Best Workplaces don’t provide health care. At one of them, Ocala, Florida–based MzeroA.com, which offers flight training, employees get gym reimbursement and access to companypaid, flat-fee partnerships with local health care practitioners, as well as a catastrophic insurance plan for emergencies.
You Deserve Some Time Off
Typically a perk for professors, a surprising 16 percent of Inc.’ s Best Workplaces offer paid sabbaticals. At AdvicePeriod, an L.A.based wealth-management firm, employees accrue a week of paid sabbatical time on each work anniversary. Once they reach year 4, they can cash in—and every time someone uses a sabbatical, his or her calendar resets.
The Pup Will See You Now
Ah, pets in the office—that classic polarizing discussion. This year’s data shows that 49 percent of the Best Workplaces now allow employees to bring a pet to work. LYNC Logistics in Chattanooga, Tennessee, features a golden retriever named LeBron as its chief happiness officer. “His sole purpose is to make everyone who walks in our doors happy,” says the company. Interestingly, the 4 percent of businesses on the list without a casual dress code are almost all among the segment without a pet policy. Maybe, at a certain point, you have to choose: Your dog or your suit?
Meet the VP of Chill
Sixty-five percent of our Best Workplaces hold regular stressrelief breaks—and some of them are particularly notable mental refreshers. Enigma Technologies, a data-management and intelligence company in New York City, stocks its office with musical instruments and pays for staff to book time at a local recording studio. Voorhees, New Jersey’s Trinity Packaging Supply hosts table-tennis lessons with a former world champion. And at the new headquarters for United Shore, a Pontiac, Michigan– based mortgage lender, CEO Mat Ishbia, a former Michigan State hoops star, installed a full-size basketball court. —Cameron Albert-Deitch