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The Good Stuff: Fringe Benefits
The annual Sage Salary Survey is ramping up again, which shows how much jobs in IT pay. What with a lot of companies still offering benefits like exercise and health programs, do these benefits still matter? Or is it just about the money?
Being a no-good, scum-sucking contractor, to me it's always about the money. Jobs come and go, and the amount in my savings account keeps me sleeping nights a lot more than a covered parking space. But I can understand that for normal people, benefits are very important. Health insurance is probably at the top of my list of things that would be great to have.
I worked at a couple dot-coms back in the day. I remember one of them, Trilogy Software, had open kitchens stocked with all kinds of goodies -- it was like a little 7-11 on each floor, except it was all free. I really miss Trilogy. It was a great place to work, and I hear they're still going like gangbusters down in Austin.
But I don't miss them because of the food. I miss them because it was a dynamic place to work that kept me challenged. I was running small projects for them, and I got to be the "point man" on-site, which is a job I like doing. I also got to train consultants, which is another hoot. It was the people and the work environment -- the corporate culture -- that made the job good. And because the corporate culture was good, there were also a lot of benefits. The benefits alone don't mean much.
So what's a person to do when looking for a job? That's a tough question. Usually we look at it from the "how do I get a job" standpoint, but perhaps a better question would be "how do I get the right job?"
I am aware of Trilogy. They have a great corporate set up. They do things for their employees that in the long run pay off big time. The right job can be influenced a lot by what you get out of it. If you have a job where the company doesn't seem to care about you and your life at all, you are more likely to take every allowed break, to leave at 5 o'clock on the nose and to not go over board to do your job. Whereas with a company that provides free food...you have a tendency to stay in instead of go out on your lunch break and while you are staying in you do a little more work. With a company that offers incentives like yacht parties/keg nights with free taxi rides home/and huge bonuses for jobs well done, you take ownership and you go above and beyond to complete your task. Everyone wins in this scenario. I can only hope that more corporationgs take notice by providing flexibility and these simple incentives to employees. The day of the fifty year job and gold watch at the end are gone...but incentives to attract the best employees are still needed.