PerkSpot

As more and more companies are looking for ways to offer a personal and individualized new media solution to their employees, few know exactly how to provide it. Your company has email, has a website, maybe even an intranet, too. But in the face of cutting costs, how can you give your employees the added benefits that so-called “new media” can offer? And do you need to? You’re not a Google full of whippersnappers all under the age of 27, and you’re not trying to be. Just the same, according to the latest issue of Employee Benefit News :

While more Gen Y and Gen X people demand personalization than do older generations, this is by no means something just for the 20-somethings. CBS News reports baby boomers are more enthusiastic than younger Americans in using the Internet for health care, finances, government and religious information – all topics that demand a highly personalized experience. Boomers are more likely to look up health care information online, visit support groups for medical conditions and use the Internet for financial information and transactions than their younger counterparts.

PerkSpot has a unique place in the new media space – it stands directly on the unique line where the personalization younger generations crave and brass-tacks functionality Boomers seek come together. PerkSpot is an online solution that provides you a place to meet your employees where their needs converge, providing them added benefits that will improve their quality of life while improving your employee retention and the time efficiency of your Human Resources department. PerkSpot’s employee discount program is where everyone’s needs meet and are met.

We’re thrilled to have been mentioned in the most recent United Hemispheres Magazine article about perks on the job.

There are two ways to put money in your workers’ pockets: Take it out of yours, or help them save their own. Wegmans, a grocery store chain that’s perennially on Fortune’s list, gave out 10 percent food discounts at holiday time last year. Outfits like Chicago-based PerkSpot match up vendors offering discounts — on everything from restaurants to cell phone providers — with companies looking to beef up benefit packages. PerkSpot CEO Chris Hill says discount programs “soften the blow on employees” when other perks have to be sacrificed.

This relevant article points out just how effective employee perks are at keeping employee morale high and employee retention even higher. There are many different perks out there that are laid out in the article — way beyond offering the obvious free coffee. Still, this cultural shift is not just a product of what businessman and theorist Cam Marston has called “Millennials” – a new generation that has come to “expect” such benefits. With a platform like PerkSpot, these types of employee discount programs, perks, corporate benefits, voluntary benefits, rewards & recognition are easy to offer.

Perks help your company and your human resources department, no matter what generation they’re in.

…is directly tied to employee discount and voluntary benefits provider platforms like PerkSpot.

Ellen Gilmore, assistant director of employee engagement at the Harvard School of Public Health, defines engagement as,

“more than job satisfaction. She said: ‘It’s more about the level to which employees demonstrate commitment to their work. It’s about putting in the extra effort and caring about the quality of your work. Employees who are engaged understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture.’”

The ROI may not be evident in hard numbers, but an article on the topic in Employee Benefit News says that eventually, it will be.

“… experts say that (not having an employee benefits program) might cause a negative impact on customer satisfaction, employee loyalty and profitability.”

Employers without valid employee benefits program compromise the integrity and the staying power of the workplace, effectually saying to all your employees that they come last – that their commitment doesn’t matter. Your employees will leave you for greener pastures. And believe us. There are greener pastures.

We work with some of those green pastures.

Here are some rewards and recognition we’ve lined up for our employee benefit programs on PerkSpot:

One of the only places to get a 10% discount on anything anytime at Target.com.Our exclusive discount applies to other discounts on Target.com, sometimes resulting in savings up to 20-25%.

In addition to providing new deals on desktops, laptops and other electronics weekly, PerkSpot offers a 7% discount on top of generally advertised Dell pricing and promotions. Don’t forget to add the extras: for the first time ever, get an additional 7% off electronics and accessories.

Get 5% off to more than 40 popular vacation destinations including Las Vegas, Orlando, Los Angeles, Lake Tahoe, and many more. Southwest Airlines is the source for convenient, affordable vacation packages — saving you hundreds of dollars.

Offer your employees a discount program through PerkSpot. It will free up your Human Resources department to do work that can significantly impact your company — no longer will they have to waste time shuffling papers, photocopying this month’s discount flyer.  PerkSpot makes it easy to show employees that they matter – that they do have a place in the big picture.

PerkSpot wants to assist your employee discount programs and voluntary benefits in being as green as you all can be. That’s why we’re offering great Earth Day discounts that keep not just the world green — but your wallet, too.

By using PerkSpot deals — and this is with or without those Earth Day Specials — not only are your employees saving money, but they’re eliminating some of needless paper waste of the world’s coupons and coupon clipping-past.  Ever wonder where all those coupon inserts from your Sunday paper end up? The fact is, less than 5% end up being used. Of the approximately 310 billion coupons produced and inserted into your paper each year, only 7.7 billion are redeemed. That leaves 302.3 billion coupons left unused, and we did the math – about 560 million trees that have fallen just to make coupons that are never redeemed.

If employees see a deal that interests them, one click away is a customized rewards an recognition program through PerkSpot, available for both their favorite local stores and at national companies like Target and Best Buy.  No more casting a large net, googling discounts, scouring the Sunday paper in the hopes of catching some deals – PerkSpot offers your human resources department the opportunity to give employees a way to search discounts in a convenient, greener way. A way that saves them time and buys the Earth a little more.

It’s obvious – PerkSpot is a great place to find discounts on travel, fashion, electronics, cell phones, computers…that sort of thing. But there are some not-so-obvious discounts running on our site as well. Discounts you wouldn’t immediately think of when you think of “perks.” Or would you?

Recently, we added a deal to the site from DentalPlans.com that offers a free vision plan with the purchase of a discount dental plan (just use the coupon code EYES3). How about that? Not exactly what you expect, maybe, but not an altogether bad deal, either — if you’re on the market, as many people are, for voluntary or supplemental benefits.  Not an altogether bad addition to any employer’s employee benefits program. Rather, it’s a pretty compelling discount to have on the roster, and we’re glad to offer it.

Sure, it’s not a Dell computer, an iPod shuffle, or a trip to San Francisco, but things like health services and life services are voluntary benefits that you buy, that you spend your money purchasing  — this means that on PerkSpot, they’re things that we want your Human Resources department to be able to offer to your employees, saving them some of their hard-earned money.  Be on the look-out for more opportunities like this here at PerkSpot – we like to stretch that definition of “perk” as far as it will go to stretch the rewards and recognition that employers can offer to their employees so that in the end – everyone benefits.

Peter Merholz recently wrote about becoming a Customer-Experience driven business in the Harvard Business Blog:

“…in my work, the biggest impact I’ve seen a customer experience mindset have is to help companies understand how they can better orchestrate existing elements to realize new value.”

Now, customers, in the case of large companies seeking to retain and attract talent, are employees. The “new value” an *employee*-experience driven model creates is one that helps you retain employees even in the face of the potential stasis in monetary benefits all employers seem to be facing on a daily basis. Still, an existing, yet flimsy benefits program won’t increase the positivity of your employees’ overall experience with your company.  Sure, you may offer an employee discount program, some voluntary benefits, maybe have some relationships with larger merchants that extend discounts to your employees – and that’s a start that many employers haven’t even considered.

But are these existing elements creating real, palpable value for your employees?

How can your business, as Peter says, “choreograph” the existing elements of your human resources team to realize new value to your employees? PerkSpot offers a platform through which your HR department can develop your company to be such an employee-experience driven company, offering organized and centralized discounts, deals, rewards and recognition. PerkSpot will help to present your company as one that values its employees, and shows that by going above and beyond typical benefits programs, offering them added value benefits in a one-stop online shop. All this without added burdens upon an already stressed human resources staff.

When you consider the empty labeled golf balls of the now famously defunct Lehman Brothers, it’s easy to see how real world benefits show not only that you’re vested in your employees’ lives but also in the life of your company…. not in giving out little balls of pomp and circumstance that would have little value in anyone’s everyday life.

So when you’re thinking about offering incentives and added value benefits programs to reinforce your employee morale and loyalty to the company, don’t reach for the logo and slap it on this or that – reach for PerkSpot and offer them something truly valuable — actual value in the form of deals, discounts and benefits.

Hat tip to Like it Matters for offering up Peter’s Harvard article, thus giving this blog its thoughtful context this week.

Time to throw out your traditional ideas of what insurance is about.

It’s not just about health care anymore. Imagine other emergency costs to your family, and what comes to mind? Ever considered the impact that the financial burden of a sudden legal event could have on your life?

67% of Baby Boomers have experienced a family, financial, home or car-related legal event in the past year.* 100% of Baby Boomers will eventually, let’s face it, die  (even Robert Redford, despite his appearance to have some sort of deal with the devil). Will 100% of them have a will that’s solid within the eyes of the law? Of course not! 40% of those surveyed* haven’t planned for any legal events at all and would have to simply “find a way” to pay.

Find a way! As grandma says (in one way or another), ways do not grow on trees. These “ways” are found in the form of insurance. In this case, legal insurance.

And soon, employees will be able to purchase just such  a voluntary benefit (a legal plan) on PerkSpot – at a discounted rate, of course. In a lawsuit-ridden world like the one we live in, legal events have become a new form of financial illness afflicting the lives of many people every day. Legal insurance benefits are as necessary to one’s financial well-being as health insurance, and PerkSpot has stepped in to offer this voluntary benefit discount, offering your human resources department a better way to support its employees.

*According to a survey conducted by Russell Research on behalf of ARAG, a leading provider of legal insurance in the work site market

As we continue to develop world-class employee discount and voluntary benefits programs, we’ve noticed a common problem amongst our clients and prospects: the inability of some employees to obtain the financing needed to make purchases on more expensive items. A common and often necessary purchase that falls into this category is computers, and that is why PerkSpot has partnered with Purchasing Power to eliminate this problem.

Purchasing Power is a program that will allow employees to purchase computers and other items with the convenience of payroll deduction while bypassing the traditional financing process altogether. This allows employees to purchase these items without unbalancing their budgets, and frankly, it allows a greater number of employees to purchase in the first place. For example, 50% of those who apply for financing from Dell for computer purchases do not receive it. If an organization of 30,000 employees has 5,000 employees making computer purchases each year, that could be as many as 2,500 employees who are not able to retrieve the financing they need to make these purchases.

As human resources departments across the world are struggling to remain competitive in their voluntary benefits offerings amidst the shaky economy, PerkSpot has identified Purchasing Power as a great benefit for employees and employee discount programs.

Three weeks ago we wrote about the results of two surveys that led us to believe that ‘baby boomers’ are more tech savvy than we once thought. Our belief has been further bolstered by a recent eMarketer article stating that the gap between generations using the Internet is narrowing. Specifically, the study ‘noted that the biggest increase in Internet use since 2005 was in the 70-to-75-year-old age group; just over one-quarter of them were online in 2005′.

As the Internet becomes ubiquitous among all age groups, the appeal of a discount program for both employees and retirees as part of a voluntary benefits package only grows. Furthermore, we are PerkSpot are devoting increased time to develop and research meaningful savings opportunities for all age groups.

Despite a slumping economy, PerkSpot is growing and preparing for some exciting changes. We are hiring two Marketing & Customer Service Coordinators to help take PerkSpot to the next level. In 2009, we will evolve our existing employee discount programs to help human resources departments and other organizations save their employees and members more money than ever before. It’s an exciting time to join our team and we are looking for the best and the brightest. Check out the current job postings on our Job Opportunities page and send an email to hr [at] perkspot [dot] com if interested.