Bring Benefits to Life with Stories
Your company benefits say a lot about your corporate culture and what your company prioritizes. For example, good parental leave programs mean a company supports working parents. Profit sharing means shared success is important.
If your company has unique and popular benefits, don’t bury them in your intranet! Benefits and perks play a key role in attracting and retaining top talent. By bringing your benefits to the beginning of the hiring process (and reinforcing them internally with employees) you’ll help your company culture stand out externally and increase participation internally.
The best way to bring your benefits to life is by gathering stories from employees who have been positively impacted. Then, highlight these stories across your internal and external communications channels. Get inspired by the following examples!
Capital One: Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement
Capital One’s Adoption and Surrogacy Reimbursement Programs provide guidance and financial support for those building their families. In addition to generous maternity leave, associates can take eight weeks for Paternity Leave, Adoption/Foster Care Leave, and Birth via a Surrogate. These benefits help associates realize their family dreams.
For example, any family looking to adopt—including LGBTQ parents—has access to benefits that help remove financial barriers. Ethan, a Capital One associate, used the Adoption Reimbursement Program benefit when adding to his family.
Ethan shares, “I’m incredibly grateful. Adoption is certainly expensive, and it’s amazing to work for a company that recognizes that it’s a great option to start a family for all types of families, not just LGBTQ families.”
Beyond the financial assistance this benefit offered, Ethan shares the support he felt from Capital One’s culture. Not only was he encouraged to completely unplug and bond with his family during paternity leave, he felt belonging from his colleagues.
“I am a married gay man with two children of color. My colleagues embrace my family with as much excitement and support as I could imagine and hope for any type of family. From the moment I started at Capital One, I felt like I belonged.”
Read more on the Capital One blog.
Precision BioSciences: Professional Development, Relocation Programs, and more
During our interview days, one of our favorite questions to ask employee storytellers is, “What is your favorite benefit and why?” Played out across 5, 10, 15 storyteller interviews, it’s rewarding to hear how different team members have applied company benefits to their own lives inside and outside of work.
Once you’ve gathered all your responses, these answers make for a great compilation video about company benefits and what these benefits say about your company culture. In this compilation video from Precision Biosciences, we hear team members speak to the company’s professional development stipend, wellness reimbursement, and relocation program, amongst other perks and benefits.
Trane Technologies: Mental Health Benefits
The global manufacturing company, Trane Technologies, had long-offered progressive mental health benefits. The problem? Low participation form its deskless workforce due to stigma around mental health at work. To normalize using the mental health benefits, Trane Technologies’ Global Wellness Team launched a mental health anti-stigma campaign featuring leaders sharing their own personal experiences with mental health.
Stories like this one from Ann send a powerful message to team members that Trane Technologies cares about their mental health and wellbeing.
Stories Inc: Sabbatical
From award ceremonies to all-expenses paid trips, there are countless ways organizations approach celebrating employee milestones. Here at Stories Inc., after every five years of employment team members enjoy a four-week, fully paid sabbatical.
To bring that benefit to life, our Director of Customer Success Anna Lippe shared on LinkedIn how she spent her sabbatical and what the time away from work meant to her.
What benefits stories will you tell?
Benefits say a lot about your company culture and how you prioritize your people. By uncovering stories of your benefits in action, you help set your culture apart from the competition externally and drive employee engagement internally.