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

Parking and great IT support. I want to leave, but I'll really miss these two things the most.

$300 of research & development spending money every month... to be used on food & drink (eating/drinking out). Made my time in San Francisco absolutely amazing!

Free theatre tickets

80% off my annual season ticket.

We have a points reward system that converts to money we can use as vouchers online. So far this year I have over €300 worth.
We just received a wonderful care package from our company as a thanks for the last year and working throughout covid it had
Wine x2
Face mask
Hand cream
Chocolates
Popcorn
Candle
A bag of sweets
And a few other bits.

We have monthly draw for prizes of up to €500

A highly subsidised canteen

I love my workplace 🙌

Had to go to a trade fair in Istanbul which was 2 days, but my boss's mother booked the flights wrong so had an extra 3 days at the beach, all paid for!

Oh yes and free private healthcare.

A gym for €30 for the year

Flexi time 🙌 finish at 3.30 on a Friday

@Pongo101

Before Covid, the company took everyone on an all expenses paid, week-long holiday. Food, drink, and partying. Loads of fun team building events like cooking courses, escape rooms, etc. I swear some people only stayed at the company for this one week.

Optician and skin doctor coming to the office once a year to do eye/mole checks

The last Friday of every month they held a catered party on the top floor, starting around 12 noon so basically you could got the afternoon "off" to drink wine and eat buffet food with your colleagues.

Covid has taken away pretty much all of that and i am sure they won't be bringing any of that stuff back now.

A week long holiday with work? Shudder And I like my work colleagues but a week’s holiday?!

And presumably not many people with children?!

When I was an academic part of the job was presenting papers at international conferences. My co-author was scared of air travel so I got to attend all the conferences!

Our air travel expenses, hotels and subsistence were all paid for. I went to USA 3 times and travelled all over Europe. For most air ticket deals you had to stay a certain number of days to get the cheap deals (eg 7 days to the USA) so although the conference only lasted 3 days the rest of the time was in effect a paid holiday. The only things we had to pay for were private entertainment (eg shows in Las Vegas) but there would be at least 1 sightseeing trip and one theater visit built into the conference on all US trips.

The other perk was that if you were coming back from an international flight no one expected you in work the next day and it was usual to take the day off before for the trip "packing and preparation". Although we got to see some wonderful cities it was still regarded as "work".

I can recall sitting beside a young woman who was on the last leg of her business trip back from China. She had been travelling for 24 hours and her employer expected her in work the next day! I encouraged her to ask one of her parents to call in the next day to say she was too jetlagged to come in.

Before DC - Hotel points accumulated from staying away from home and working on client sites for months on end. Didn't enjoy that particularly but took advantage of spending the said points on 5* hotels on various citybreaks with DH.

Pre pandemic, DH accumulated thousands of airmiles and hotel points from work travel - enough to subsidise longhaul business class flights and accommodation for a family holiday every 2/3 yrs (we just pay the taxes). Definitely miss that perk!

We can have our smears done at work and one of our gynae consultants put my mirena in for me rather than having to wait for a GP appointment.

A table at the Brit Awards each year for several years.
Tickets to Wimbledon centre court.
A free 3-day break in Barcelona.

My stepmom being the “big boss” and my own mom being the manager. I never have childcare issues! I’ve picked all my shifts and it’s brilliant. Turns out my daughters dad is a bit a of a knob so this has really helped.

@Scarby9 it's an industry where people work notoriously long hours and have no time for other things like family or hobbies, just work. I'm not going to say the exact industry because if you are in the uk and know this industry, it's pretty obvious.

The thing is I'm more back office staff and so I don't work those ridiculously long hours but still get some of the perks. The people we work for are stinking rich though.

• Free private healthcare
• unlimited access to private GP service for whole family
• When travelling (which I did a lot pre pandemic), minimum of a 4 * hotel and £50 a night allowance that you are given, regardless of if you spend it.
• Good pension
• nice car. Admittedly I pay tax on it, but I'd never buy a car like I get.

• I lived in a hotel rent free for 3 months.
• I got my current rental in zone 1 London for 60% rent for 3 years.
• I've never worried about being unemployed

I used to be a lifegaurd so I got free use of the swimming pool and all other gym facilities, badminton courts etc on breaks and days off.

Working for a large global hotel chain, pay isn't great but that discount though..

We paid $40 a night in the centre of New York for a week (going rate was $300 a night)

Florida it was $35 a night (going rate was $400 a night but the hotel had a large conference on)

It's saved us a ton of money over the years on holidays.

Plus 50% off Food and Beverage was pretty welcomed as well

I used to work for a company that had competitions for holidays, weekends away and cars as part of their sales incentives.

Now I'm more than happy with flexible working and WFH

12 weeks holidays a year
6 - 7 hour days
Covid vaccination

Old job:
Rent and bills included
3 meals a day for free
18 weeks hol a year
A paid for evening out with DH 6 times a year.

In exchange a good week was 70 hrs a week.

Going back a few years now but non contributory pension scheme and cheap rate mortgages and loans (High Street Bank)

So many of these “perks” should actually just be standard parts of the job...

Free underground parking, together with free coffee or tea and mineral water ad lib. A long time ago and in Luxembourg (not an EU institution).

Business travel as a trailing spouse. Sat on a plane waiting to taxi as we speak. My life 2 years ago was the polar opposite of what it is now but I appreciate it and if it all ended tomorrow I'd still have some amazing memories.