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?
- Share on
Free Training & Resources
Further Reading
The amounts you can exclude from an employee’s gross income for certain fringe benefits will increase for 2026, IRS announced. As you ...
A California carwash has agreed to a $1.2M settlement to resolve wage theft allegations, according to the California Labor Commissioner’s...
A San Diego deli will pay more than $500,000 in back wages after a federal investigation found it paid workers a flat daily rate that fell ...
IRS has given employers two extra years to implement a Secure 2.0 Act provision that’s bringing tax changes for certain retirement pl...
For most employers nationwide, the new salary threshold for who’s exempt from the federal overtime and minimum wage requirements took eff...
IRS announced new per diem rates for business travel, effective October 1, 2024. Employers can use these rates through September 30, 2025. ...
