What's been your best work perk?

[gildalily]

I was reminded on one of those fb nostalgia posts about Luncheon Vouchers. In my first job I got luncheon vouchers as a perk. I think it was about 50p a day. The idea was you put them towards buying your lunch and in those days (1989) lots of places accepted them in payment. It was a nice perk if the job at the time and I'd save mine up and go for a pizza once every couple of months. It seems like an ancient concept now.

I then moved to work at M&S head office where the perks were amazing and legendary - hairdresser; chiropodist; staff discount; medical area like a full-on hospital with nurse; discount; fed at all lunches and breaks (and after work if you wanted!) for £10 a month. I think I lucked out perk-wise there.

What have your best perks at work been? Official or unofficial

@DeeDimer

Free parking Free uniform Free COVID and flu vacc

Yep.

Oh and Iceland were giving us 10% off thus weekend.

Worked for a bank - cheap mortgage, company car, shares, profit share - those were the days.

Another gallery internship..Ottolenghi delivery every Friday lunchtime and champagne.A free signed book from a now very famous artist.

NHS... during COVID they suspended our parking fees if that counts

Travel, I've seen the world.

Free flights to anywhere the airline I worked for flew to.
But....It was a cargo airline and I never fancied sitting with the cargo, be it racehorses, live eels or the midnight newspaper run.

Paid lunch breaks , very generous pension scheme funded by employer , death in service benefit x 3 times annual salary , employee assistance programme , free health insurance and a access card to get into business lounges in worldwide airports .
My dh gets free /flights at 10% cost for him , family and 2 other people

Day off on your birthday.

Business Class flights!

Free sausages when I worked in a catering trailer.

I used to get an extra weeks wage 3 times a year... Christmas, Easter and a holiday bonus!

That extra £250 used to make me feel so rich at 19!

Also no internet log so pissed about online for half the day..

Fab colleagues, free bar at the Christmas do... was a great first "proper" job!

Match and double pension contributions (capped at 10%)
Business class flights
Naice hotels (favourite so far was the Ritz in Berlin!!)
Further education costs covered (thanks to my work I have been able to do a Masters degree, which I couldn't have afforded otherwise)
Car allowance
2 days off for your wedding
1 day off for moving house

@Elsbeth1

Unlimited holidays Free lunch Free snacks and drinks Free alcohol Flexi working (after this whole covid thing happened but will continue) Free mobile phone and payment of bills Free work laptop of your choice Good pension Massage person comes in once a month

I thought my place was amazing but looking at all the glory day perks we've been missing out haha

How does unlimited holidays work?

@EssentialHummus

As a lawyer - subsidised canteen with great food, free parking in the middle of London, great medical and dental cover, free ££££ meals if working late, discounted car scheme.

I now run a food bank. The main perk is that at the end of most working days there is an excess of supermarket stock that needs to be eaten or binned so we usually make off with something - M&S doughnuts, non-dairy milk that can’t be frozen, loads of Easter eggs (the week after Easter), fruit and veg.

Surely the food could be given to food kitchens/ shelters rather than the staff taking it home?

@TheVolturi

Worked in an office but got to take my dog to work with me!

Best perk ever!

NHS : Zero risk of redundancy. Recession proof pay increments. Good pension. Excellent promotion prospects.

Oh yes, 9 months full paid maternity (sadly I had DCs when working for a previous company!
6x death in service benefit
Annual shutdown from Christmas Eve til 2 January, which doesn't come out of our annual leave allowance

I’m a nanny and have taken DD to work with me since she was a few months old. Less often now she’s in school. Is quite stressful having your child at an interview with you though.

I'm a intensive care nurse, we have to wear scrubs, the hospital washes them for us so I dont have to wash my work clothes

Get quite alot of discounts, my favourite was nandos 50% off!

I'm working today, bank holiday, will make about £250 after tax, so I try to work bank holidays if I can

Surely the food could be given to food kitchens/ shelters rather than the staff taking it home?

We give it to absolutely everyone who wants or needs it - all the local charities are on a big Whatsapp group with plenty of offers and requests - but there are times when it doesn’t happen (for example, late in the day when most projects are shut, or where we’re all inundated with the same item, or when the other food projects simply say “No thanks”). It happens a lot when you (unlike a conventional food bank) deal with perishable food. Anything we can store or freeze we do, really, but that still leaves things we can’t. And when something is past Use By we’re not allowed to distribute it, whether to other groups or recipients. Lettuce is a good example from the past week, ready meal sandwiches from a major supermarket, yoghurts. No volunteer takes things just because they fancy it.

And to add - we deal with about a tonne a week of the stuff, so not a small quantity to shift.

Flexi time and home working.

Paid for masters degree
6k towards a company car or towards my own method of transport
Current job -
Not many for a 50bn company except sickness and life cover. Benefits are really crap compared to its competitors

Flexible working which I use to take every Friday off as I look after my granddaughter then.
Monthly trips away fro staff well-being, we tend to stay in wigwams in Northumberland which is just amazing.

Impromptu discos on a Thursday afternoon/evening when we've had a busy stressful week. We have a dance/yoga floor which we use as the disco and our boss has a fantastic speaker she uses with Spotify on her phone.

It's the voluntary sector so there isn't loads of job security, contracts are only ever for three years max but the perks outweigh that for me at the moment.