Pet insurance & chair yoga: Coming to an office near you

With little room in their budgets for significant raises or rich traditional benefits, more companies are looking to creative, low-cost perks to keep their workers happy.

The result has been a spike in voluntary benefits — benefits employees select and pay for through payroll deductions.

These perks are meant to show employees their company values them — as well as provide a greater work/life balance. However, the types of voluntary benefits being offered varies greatly from company to company.

Example: Some employers are sticking to more-traditional voluntary benefits — such as life insurance and adoption assistance programs — whereas, others prefer to offer unique perks like instructional videos on how to practice chair yoga.

One voluntary benefit that’s seen a huge uptick in popularity in recent years is pet insurance. A decade ago, you’d be hard-pressed to find more than a few companies that offered employees discounted health insurance coverage for their pets. Now there are more than 1,600 employers in the U.S. that offer pet insurance, including major corporations like S.C. Johnson, TD Bank and Travelocity.

Readers, what unique voluntary benefits does your company offer?