Wackiest employee benefits from around the world

Employee benefits are all the rage in today’s business world. With companies able to access a global talent pool, competition for the best hires is fierce. Offering an extra incentive can be enough to swing a job seeker in favour of your organisation.

For most bosses, an attractive benefits package means a free coffee or a bowl of fruit in the morning. Other companies are thinking more creatively.

Below, we’ve listed the most unusual freebies, holidays, and animal add-ons from companies based across every continent. Prepare to be inspired — or very confused…

1. Cryogenic freezing

Numerai, an AI hedge fund in San Francisco, California, clearly has a lot of Star Wars fans in its C-Suite. Just like Han Solo, Numerai staff can be cryogenically frozen in the event of death and reawakened in the future. And they can then send the freezer bill to their boss.

Founder Richard Craib is apparently already a subscriber to cryonics provider Alcor, and he has chosen to list “whole-body preservation cryonics” as a benefit in job adverts.

The unconventional take on life insurance policies has made headlines. But it’s unclear if it will “attract interesting people” or just spook out software engineers.

2. Paid Tinder Leave

Source: LinkedIn/Whiteline Group

Dating is difficult when you work a full-time job. For those who don’t love the idea of an office romance, a marketing agency in Thailand has a unique solution: Paid Tinder Leave.

Until December, workers at Whiteline Group in Bangkok have been told that the company will pay for them to go on Tinder dates so they can find that special someone.

The logic is this: staff who are in relationships are happier, and they will feel more motivated at work, meaning their output will increase as a result.

Let’s hope they’re right. Or some poor HR manager is going to have to sit through hours of heartbroken employees sobbing that they never received a text back.

3. Sponsored sheep

tiktok.com/@jules.bau

Employers who cannot afford a pay rise will sometimes roll out a benefit to placate staff. Some will have more success than others, as one viral TikTok video warns.

Jules.bau, who is based in Berlin, earned over 390k views when she took to the social media app to vent about a baa-ad perk that her firm gave her instead of money: an adopted sheep.

Jules was employed at a small startup at the time. Unhappy with her pay, she asked for a raise. Instead, her boss said they would sponsor a sheep on behalf of ‘animal-lover’ Jules.

“She’s very cute, but she doesn’t pay my bills!” said Jules in the video, before revealing she left the company shortly after. “Know your worth, people”.

4. An extra month

Everyone knows there are 12 months in the year. Unless, that is, you work in France, where some lucky employees are paid for 13 months’ worth of work. So how does it work?

Thankfully, staff don’t have to put in an extra 140 hours of work to earn this extra pay boost. Known as le treizième mois, it was first introduced because of the French tax system.

French workers didn’t used to have taxes taken out of their paychecks. Instead, they got a big tax bill once a year, and the 13th month bonus was to help them cover it.

Since 2019, taxes are now taken directly from monthly salaries. But some sectors have kept the bonus, and it’s typically awarded at Christmas to help cover the cost of gifts and food.

5. Surfing hour

No, this isn’t an extra hour of the day where you can go internet shopping. Forget smoking, if you want an extra break at Patagonia, you’ll need to take up surfing.

The business’ employee handbook, entitled Let My People Go Surfing, outlines its flexible approach to work, telling staff to take some time off when they need it, even during the day.

One of Patagonia’s company values is “Not bound by convention”. That’s certainly the case for its surfing hour. “We can hardly continue to make the best outdoor clothing if we become primarily an “indoor” culture,” argues founder and owner Yvon Chouinard.

6. Onsite haircuts

Remote work has made it normal for employees to base themselves in strange locations — including the hairdressers. To get staff back into the office, Google has decided to turn the desk chair into a salon chair, by allowing them to schedule an onsite haircut free of charge.

These aren’t really at the desk (too many hairs, we suspect). Instead, your cut and blowdry can be done in a state-of-the-art mobile salon by a company called Onsite Haircuts.

Google HQ has long been known for its gimmicky office play areas, such as its famous slides. Now, it appears to be building a model village. As well as barbers, there’s also onsite doctors, dentists, and dry cleaners. It’s almost like you never have to leave work..

7. Baby milk deliveries

If you’re a new mother who’s worried about the Motherhood Penalty, don’t worry. Johnson & Johnson has you covered with its sinister breast milk shipping service for female staff.

“Traveling for business can be particularly challenging for moms who are breastfeeding,” reads the Johnson & Johnson website. “[We] instituted a unique delivery service that lets mothers who work at the company worldwide ship breast milk home for free.”

Depending on your standpoint, the policy is either progressive or manipulative. Some working mothers might appreciate knowing they can still feed their child while on the road.

But telling mums to leave newborns at home also appears to suggest that nothing — not even postpartum care — should stop them from going to that conference. Got Malpractice?

8. Pawternity Leave

Who else would offer a canine-themed benefit than BrewDog? The Scottish punk brewer unveiled its Pawternity Leave policy in 2017, and employers across the world have followed suit, allowing staff to take a week of paid leave when adopting a new puppy or rescue dog.

Pets are known to help humans feel less lonely. As Fiona Hunter, head of people at BrewDog, put it: “On the surface, it felt like quite a playful thing to do, but [the] reality is we could see it would make a tangible difference to the wellbeing of our team.”

Cynically speaking, though, Brewdog’s Pawternity Leave is only slightly less generous than its Parental Leave. Staff get just 12 weeks of full pay on maternity leave. Our guide to the firms with the best maternity leave has more on the leading employers for mums and dads.

9. Free diet pills

In most HR departments, telling your employees they are overweight would result in a swift disciplinary. That’s not the case at the Danish pharmaceutical company, Novo Nordisk.

Last November, Novo pledged to give Weight Watching employees access to free Wegovy, a weight loss pill that costs $4,400 a year. It’s a different approach to a GymPass membership. But staff are on-board, and demand for the pill is surging, according to Fortune.

Weight loss drugs are hotting up as an employee benefit. As trending, pricey weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic make their rounds through Hollywood after-parties, 18% of large employers in the US are now considering flogging them to employees, says one HR survey.

Want to go down the more traditional benefits route? Find out how to build the perfect bonus scheme for your employees.