Want to enhance your benefits package to entice your top performers to hang around and lure new talent to your team? Offer them a half day’s work on Friday — it’s by far the No. 1 perk desired by employees.
This, at least, is what several thousand respondents to a CareerBuilder survey said. Constantly on the prowl for more information on job seekers, CareerBuilder learned that 21 percent of those surveyed have resolved to land a new job in 2016, up from 16 percent in last year’s survey. So what are these folks looking for in a new employer?
Some of the qualities employees on the hunt value can’t be changed on short notice. The five most important characteristics in a new employer — all of which outranked salary — were as follows:
- Job stability: 65 percent
- Affordable benefits: 59 percent
- Location: 56 percent
- Good boss: 51 percent
- Good work culture: 46 percent
But when asked what perks would sway their decision to either accept or reject a job offer, the list included benefits that almost any employer could offer. The top five:
- Half-day Fridays: 38 percent
- On-site fitness center: 23 percent
- Daily catered lunches: 22 percent
- Massages: 18 percent
- Being able to wear jeans: 16 percent
CareerBuilder also asked respondents what other New Year’s resolutions they’d made for 2016. The top five revealed that more money and better health were their top concerns:
- Save more of my pay: 38 percent (vs. 42 percent last year)
- Be less stressed: 28 percent (vs. 34 percent last year)
- Get a raise or promotion: 26 percent (vs. 26 percent last year)
- Eat healthier at work: 19 percent (vs. 25 percent last year)
- Learn something new (take more courses, training, seminars): 17 percent (vs. 22 percent last year)
The goals were similar to those set last year at this time. Here’s how they did with regard to their promises to themselves:
- Eat healthier at work: 13 percent
- Be less stressed: 12 percent
- Save more of my pay: 11 percent
- Learn something new (take more courses, training, seminars): 9 percent
- Perform better on the job: 8 percent
