Lavish Perks Spawn New Job Category

[IIOY]

I'm glad I was sitting at my kitchen table when I read this.  It made it easier to find my eyeballs when they rolled right out of my head.  @soudesafinado knows what I'm thinking.  From WSJ, subscriber-only:

At Tech Companies, Aim-to-Please Specialists Provide Yoga Classes, Jell-O Shots; ‘We’re Like Little Elves’

SAN FRANCISCO—The nine employees at Pinterest Inc. who report to Jen Nguyen had a busy week in August.



One taught a company-only class in muay thai, a martial-arts style with kicks and punches. They put dried mango and fresh towels throughout the online scrapbook service’s new office. There was a postmortem of why a Japanese-themed lunch ran out of rice. (The reason? The rice was tasty.)



“We are just providing basic standards,” says Ms. Nguyen, 40 years old, whose title is head of workplace. Free lunch, dinner, snacks and events like a Jell-O shot-making “studio night” are a big part of what it takes to keep Pinterest’s roughly 450 employees productive and happy, she adds.


In the 1980s, technology companies helped pioneer creation of the chief information officer to straddle the worlds of general management and tech. Now, competition among technology companies to outdo each other’s extraordinary perks has grown so fierce that it is spawning another new job category.



At companies hoping to be the next big thing and older ones trying to keep up, the role of office manager has transformed into a so-called workplace coordinator, who often leads a staff of aim-to-please specialists. Such employees function as concierges, responsible for everything from planning outings to memorizing favorite granola-bar flavors.



Chris Lavoie, a global event strategist at Adobe Systems Inc., is working on a planned whiskey tasting for employees next year. Talent programs manager Sue-Min Koh of Riot Games Inc., maker of the hit “League of Legends” videogame, hired a snow maker to pump 10 tons of snow on the company’s basketball court in Southern California for an employee celebration.





At online media provider Shutterstock Inc., Razia Ferdousi-Meyer says her responsibility “to know who likes the Kind bars, who likes the potato chips, who likes the coconut water” feels like her previous job as a guest-relations coordinator at a Ritz-Carlton hotel overlooking Manhattan’s Central Park.



Tech companies say it is hard to avoid creating at least one full-time position devoted to the pursuit of worker happiness once a company hires about 100 employees.



“If you had asked me five years ago, I never would have known this existed in a job description,” says Layla Baird, who works in Ms. Nguyen’s team at Pinterest. Earlier in her career, she bought metal parts for satellites, sat in a cubicle and made her own coffee. “If I wanted my snack, I got it out of the vending machine,” she says.


Michael DeAngelo, Pinterest’s head of people, says the moves are merely “table stakes” considering the frenzied job market of the latest tech boom, where product developers frequently get multiple job offers and six-figure starting salaries right out of college. The 4-year-old company plans to hire 100 to 200 more employees in the next 12 months.



Software company Asana hands out a $10,000-per-person allowance for computers and desk décor, with some employees spending money on mini refrigerators, headphones, custom-made ergonomic chairs and rugs. Asana got its first perks-focused employee about a year ago and will probably add a second as the firm doubles in size to 200 employees in the next year.



Kenny Van Zant, Asana’s chief operating officer, says free yoga classes, in-house chefs and other goodies enable workers to focus fully on work. They are more productive when they don’t have to dash out for lunch or to the gym.



“We don’t want them stressing out about regular life,” he says. Asana spends tens of thousands of dollars a year per employee on perks, which Mr. Van Zant says is “easily” equivalent to between 10% and 15% of salaries.



Tech companies expect the benefits to keep workers in the office later at night—and longer before they are tempted to quit for another job. “It is an interesting and moderately dirty tactic,” says Jeff Winter, chief executive of San Francisco recruiting firm GravityPeople.



Skeptics say the return on investment from bending over backward to meet employee demands and whims is mixed.



Workers enthralled by a blowout summer picnic might not be the ones a company most wants to keep, says Iwan Barankay, an associate professor of management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School who has been a corporate consultant on non-monetary workplace incentives.



In addition, “frustration can set in quickly” if freebies abound but the company won’t hand out raises, he says.



Another problem: At companies where pampering employees has always been part of the culture, it is hard to stop if business turns sour. Zynga Inc. shares have fallen more than 80% since 2012 as the game maker struggles to find a follow-up hit to “Farmville.” Before going public in 2011, Zynga began serving lunch and dinner daily to its employees, using specialty ingredients like Japanese Kewpie mayonnaise and pinecone syrup.



A spokeswoman for Zynga, based in San Francisco, says the company ended free haircuts for employees earlier this year. She declined to comment further.



As perks get bigger and better, some employees figure they can ask for anything. One worker at Pinterest recently wanted the company to build a zip line to a nearby bar, while an Adobe employee asked the maker of Photoshop and Illustrator design software to buy a Slip ’N Slide for workday use.

The zip line got a no. Adobe’s Mr. Lavoie says he hasn’t made up his mind about the Slip ’N Slide. “I’m not making any promises,” he told the employee.



Nevertheless, because investors are willing to pay lofty premiums for stakes in companies with high growth potential, those companies feel like they can afford to spend heavily on workplace perks even if the companies generate little profit or revenue.



Pinterest was valued at about $5 billion when it raised a $200 million investment in May. The closely held company lets users build online collections of photos in the form of “pins,” amassing more than 30 billion since 2010.



The company says it spends $10 to $12 for each employee lunch or dinner—and $10 a person for the once-a-week hot breakfast. Snacks cost $5 to $8 per worker per day. Pinterest also spends about $1,250 every other week on happy hour. Wine tastings, terrarium-building classes and other events have an annual budget of roughly $14,000.



Pinterest won’t comment on the overall cost but says it is worth it. “We’re all lucky as hell to live here and be in this crazy zeitgeist of a movement that’s rich with money,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp says. “If there are ways that we can make their lives a little easier that don’t cost a lot and…don’t distance them from reality too much, I think it is a really nice gesture.”



Rick Heitzmann, a managing director at FirstMark Capital, a venture-capital firm in New York that owns a large stake in Pinterest and was its first investor, says the company’s spending is “appropriate for a company at this stage.”



The perks are needed to lure top talent, Mr. Heitzmann adds. “We’re in the process of building a large, world-class company, and you have to invest to build something of that magnitude.”



Silicon Valley writer and historian Michael S. Malone traces the arms race in employee perks back to Hewlett-Packard Co. , which introduced stock options in the 1950s and flexible work hours in 1973. The company also offered a beer party on Friday afternoons and bought several hundred acres of land as a camping and recreation getaway for H-P workers.



Across the industry, the goodies got better with each boom—and weren’t wiped out by busts.


Google Inc. ’s success has helped fuel the spread of numerous perks to other companies that rely on engineers. Google, of Mountain View, Calif., has a “workplace services” team to oversee food service, fitness centers and the upkeep on bicycles used by employees. “Great workplace services have been in Google’s DNA since day one,” said Google in a statement.



Nuha Masri, 25, says she can’t imagine working at a company without generous perks. They impressed her at Google, which also offers “nap pods,” and then became “so mundane, you just expect them,” she says.



She now has a job at Pinterest keeping inappropriate material off the website. “I obviously have options. I can be anywhere I want to be,” she adds while switching between lines of computer code on a Mac laptop and a board game called Carcassonne.



Ms. Nguyen, the employee in charge of perks at Pinterest, joined the company about 18 months ago from Zynga. As senior director of workplace there, she oversaw the office bar and created a dog park on Zynga’s roof. She decided she wanted to devote her career to perks during an earlier job at electric-car maker Tesla Motors Inc.



Pinterest and Ms. Nguyen won’t say how much she earns. She says workplace coordinators get paid roughly $40,000 to $80,000 a year. “We’re like little elves. If we’re doing our jobs right, people don’t notice us,” says Leslie Kincaid, a member of Ms. Nguyen’s staff and Pinterest’s 12th employee.



The company’s headquarters in the South of Market section of San Francisco include a Zen meditation room, library with oversize ottomans and pillows, and a shared desk custom-built from a vintage Ford Mustang. Massages are offered every other Wednesday, but employees must pay $15—a decision meant to evoke Pinterest’s view of itself as “scrappy.”



Usually, though, employees “feel like you have the right to ask” for special frills, says Ms. Kincaid. When they do, the answer tends to be yes.



In August, about 50 employees moved into Pinterest’s new office just down the block from the headquarters building. Within days, some workers complained about their adjustable-height desks, which were used and couldn’t be raised or lowered with the press of a button like their previous desks.



Ms. Nguyen responded by hiring installers to work overtime this weekend on adding new features to desks in the new office.



Stephanie Rogers, a 23-year-old engineer, said before a weeknight muay thai class at Pinterest that perks and pampering are a barometer of the company’s prospects. “If they’re going to keep me here with exercise classes, I’m going to work longer,” she says.



Ms. Nguyen admits it can be hard to balance the wants of highly valued employees with her attention to expenses and determination to not inflate workers’ sense of entitlement. One worker recently asked Pinterest’s workplace team why the company doesn’t provide kombucha, a fermented tea beverage.



While the company’s snack pantry is stocked with chocolate-covered espresso beans, gluten-free cookies and eight kinds of cereal (from Special K to Honey Nut Cheerios), Ms. Nguyen decided that kombucha is too fancy. It costs $3 to $4 for a 16-ounce bottle.



She didn’t look upset about an evening event in August where an artisanal jam maker was brought in to turn jam into cocktails, a vinaigrette and cookies. Seventeen employees RSVPed, but only two showed up.

[ttt]

Meanwhile other people are about to stock shelves and deal with insane shoppers for 12 hours straight on Thanksgiving for $9 an hour and no health insurance....

[panicked]

A zip line? Are you fucking kidding me?!

[IIOY]

I'm busy being outraged on behalf of the guy who didn't get the zip lines.

And I totally agree that nap pods are just so mundane.

[josieposy]

As an investor I'd be kinda pissed about some of these costs.

[msmerymac]

So, there are a few companies around here in my field that have employee "perks" like free lunches every day, shuttles to and from the train station, even big-ass slides in the lobby. But at least one such company has no company 401k match.  ^o) Hmm. Do I want free fish tacos, or do I want to retire some day?

[ttt]

Nuha Masri, 25, says she can’t imagine working at a company without generous perks. They impressed her at Google, which also offers “nap pods,” and then became “so mundane, you just expect them,” she says.

She now has a job at Pinterest keeping inappropriate material off the website. “I obviously have options. I can be anywhere I want to be,” she adds while switching between lines of computer code on a Mac laptop and a board game called Carcassonne.




Raise your hand if you would ever want to hire this person to work for you. 

[msmerymac]

Nov 21, 2014 14:20:54 GMT -5 josieposy said:

As an investor I'd be kinda pissed about some of these costs.

I also feel like as an "employer perk and happiness/wellbeing director" - um, well, how do you gauge your success? You aren't contributing directly to the company's bottom line, like someone in sales. You aren't doing a needed task, like accounting, or IT, or customer service. You aren't even doing something like marketing/advertising where you can say, "well, I increased our page views to X, or I increased our social media followers by Y%" Tangible results.

What can this Jennifer person put on her resume? "Reduced traffic-related stress in employees by 35% via on-site gym and shuttle bus service"? "Increased percentage of healthy mindless snacking by 15%"?

[ttt]

Nov 21, 2014 14:44:18 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Nov 21, 2014 14:20:54 GMT -5 josieposy said:

As an investor I'd be kinda pissed about some of these costs.

I also feel like as an "employer perk and happiness/wellbeing director" - um, well, how do you gauge your success? You aren't contributing directly to the company's bottom line, like someone in sales. You aren't doing a needed task, like accounting, or IT, or customer service. You aren't even doing something like marketing/advertising where you can say, "well, I increased our page views to X, or I increased our social media followers by Y%" Tangible results.

What can this Jennifer person put on her resume? "Reduced traffic-related stress in employees by 35% via on-site gym and shuttle bus service"? "Increased percentage of healthy mindless snacking by 15%"?

Employee retention, probably, like anyone in HR. 

[mbcdefg]

I don't want to be working in an office for so many hours that it requires a nap.

[tacosforlife]

It is also hard for me to read stories like this without turning Hulk levels of green with jealousy.

At my last job, the firm paid for the water cooler and paid for my parking at home since I declined the office garage space. Those are literally the only perks I have ever gotten in my professional life. At my first job and my current job, you have to join the water club if you even want water from the cooler instead of the tap. I just want some free goddamned coffee and these assholes are asking for a motherfucking zip line.

Fuck everyone.

[2curlydogs]

Nov 21, 2014 14:52:25 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

I don't want to be working in an office for so many hours that it requires a nap.

I dunno. I could have used a nap pod after yesterday's Work Thanksgiving. 

[redheadbaker]

So, on a less-grand scale, I work at a company like this. We get "happy hour" in-office on Fridays. We have a trainer come in two days a week. We get free (sometimes mandatory) activities -- the owner paid for a class on organic eating, and we took a booze cruise on the river.

I would trade ALL of that for a better wage, more work/life flexibility, and something more than 3 holidays during the year. But you know, that's not good for company productivity and profits. :\

[pinkdutchtulips]

tech co. perks make most people pea green w envy.

i'll pass on ALL of it since I'm not expected to be at the office 24/7 and have a life of my choosing OUTSIDE of the office instead of having my 'life' inside the office.

[ESF]

“We’re all lucky as hell to live here and be in this crazy zeitgeist of a movement that’s rich with money,” Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp says. “If there are ways that we can make their lives a little easier that don’t cost a lot and…don’t distance them from reality too much, I think it is a really nice gesture.”

Translation:

I know Silicon Valley is filled with self-absorbed manchilds because I'm one of them, and I like to offer yoga classes to the hot chicks here at pinterest to help make up for all the sexual harassment and bro culture.

[tacosforlife]

And please note, those of us who have no perks really don't want this level of perks. I love the flexibility I have. But it would be nice (and way less chaotic) if the gub'mint could pay for two coffee makers and a steady supply of coffee, sugar, and cream. Instead, we have everybody bringing in 10 different coffee apparatuses and fridges filled with everybody's personal creamers.

Coffee, an annual holiday meal, and a water cooler. MY STANDARDS ARE NOT HIGH.

[kadams767]

Nov 21, 2014 14:52:25 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

I don't want to be working in an office for so many hours that it requires a nap.

This is where I am.  Free lunch and dinner sounds great on paper, but I'd rather be able to leave the office and go home and eat dinner with my husband.  Free sandwich platters do not buy my happiness.  And this is said by someone with a fair amount of "regular" office perks.

[havarti]

I wonder if Proboards has any crazy perks. Patrick?

[mbcdefg]

Nov 21, 2014 14:54:17 GMT -5 2curlydogs said:

Nov 21, 2014 14:52:25 GMT -5 mbcdefg said:

I don't want to be working in an office for so many hours that it requires a nap.

I dunno. I could have used a nap pod after yesterday's Work Thanksgiving. 

We just had our Thanksgiving Work Lunch today and I've been seriously thinking of pulling a George Costanza since then.

[ESF]

Nov 21, 2014 14:20:54 GMT -5 josieposy said:

As an investor I'd be kinda pissed about some of these costs.

You would think that would be the case, but SV is a warped place.

If they stopped with the free shit, people would start leaving to go home to eat dinner and go to the gym (meaning in turn, they'd have to hire more people), or people would want more money.  At the end of the day, the bottom line is going to be the same.  

The advantage of paying people to do more work with free food and yoga and zip lines means that employees get tens of thousands of dollars of benefits in tax free perks.

It also fits in with the SV libertarian ethos.  Which unlike true libertarianism, is not really about deregulation.  It's about figuring out how to make regulations work for you personally so that you can carve out your own hyper-privatized paradise.  For example, the Google bus issue is the most notorious example.  A true libertarian might think that the government shouldn't run a transit company, but rather, a private company should exist that could provide public-like transit to everyone.  An SV libertarian wants to take that further.  They want their company to provide transit to them.  Because it's impractical for every company to build its own bus stops, it's to their benefit for public transit to exist, so they can use the public's bus stops to get on their private buses that their company gives them, even though they aren't paying into that system in rider fees.  

That same mentality is what is driving the popularity of these things.  Why go to yoga classes at the Y when you can go to them in the privacy of your own corporate paradise?  Why go for a jog in a public park when you company has bought land for you to run on there?    

The investors share this mentality, so that's why this shit continues.

[Patrick]

Nov 21, 2014 15:19:16 GMT -5 havarti said:

I wonder if Proboards has any crazy perks. Patrick?

We have Pizza Fridays.  We go all out!

*eating pizza right now*

[josieposy]

Nov 21, 2014 15:24:46 GMT -5 ESF said:

Nov 21, 2014 14:20:54 GMT -5 josieposy said:

As an investor I'd be kinda pissed about some of these costs.

You would think that would be the case, but SV is a warped place.

If they stopped with the free shit, people would start leaving to go home to eat dinner and go to the gym (meaning in turn, they'd have to hire more people), or people would want more money.  At the end of the day, the bottom line is going to be the same.  

The advantage of paying people to do more work with free food and yoga and zip lines means that employees get tens of thousands of dollars of benefits in tax free perks.

It also fits in with the SV libertarian ethos.  Which unlike true libertarianism, is not really about deregulation.  It's about figuring out how to make regulations work for you personally so that you can carve out your own hyper-privatized paradise.  For example, the Google bus issue is the most notorious example.  A true libertarian might think that the government shouldn't run a transit company, but rather, a private company should exist that could provide public-like transit to everyone.  An SV libertarian wants to take that further.  They want their company to provide transit to them.  Because it's impractical for every company to build its own bus stops, it's to their benefit for public transit to exist, so they can use the public's bus stops to get on their private buses that their company gives them, even though they aren't paying into that system in rider fees.  

That same mentality is what is driving the popularity of these things.  Why go to yoga classes at the Y when you can go to them in the privacy of your own corporate paradise?  Why go for a jog in a public park when you company has bought land for you to run on there?    

The investors share this mentality, so that's why this shit continues.

Follow up question. Do these people never get sick of being around coworkers so much?

[havarti]

Nov 21, 2014 15:28:52 GMT -5 Patrick said:

Nov 21, 2014 15:19:16 GMT -5 havarti said:

I wonder if Proboards has any crazy perks. Patrick?

We have Pizza Fridays.  We go all out!

*eating pizza right now*

You're not even meeting the low bar tacosforlife set!

[tacosforlife]

Nov 21, 2014 15:28:52 GMT -5 Patrick said:

Nov 21, 2014 15:19:16 GMT -5 havarti said:

I wonder if Proboards has any crazy perks. Patrick?

We have Pizza Fridays.  We go all out!

*eating pizza right now*

I hate you.

I had to go to the Air and Space Museum on my lunch break, and the pie truck was nearby. But those assholes weren't at the window, so not only did I not get free pizza, I didn't even get the chance to pay for chicken pot pie. And now I'm hungry. I want a taco. Or pizza. Or maybe a taco on top of a pizza.

[IIOY]

Nov 21, 2014 15:28:52 GMT -5 Patrick said:

Nov 21, 2014 15:19:16 GMT -5 havarti said:

I wonder if Proboards has any crazy perks. Patrick?

We have Pizza Fridays.  We go all out!

*eating pizza right now*

I would kill for some pizza right now.  Are you hiring?  

I didn't mean kill YOU by the way, just in case that impacts your consideration of my job application.

[lulu13]

It makes me sad to see SV seen in such negative light. I grew up in SJ and still live in SJ and I have so many family members and friends, both male and female, who work at eBay, Google, Apple etc. and really love it. I know a lot of moms who have great flexibility at these companies too. Maybe it's our age and the fact that they've worked their way up the food chain for 20 years but it's not all bad. There are definitely issues and there is a lot of room for change but there is also a ton of opportunity in the area.

[ESF]

Nov 21, 2014 15:30:41 GMT -5 josieposy said:

Nov 21, 2014 15:24:46 GMT -5 ESF said:

You would think that would be the case, but SV is a warped place.

If they stopped with the free shit, people would start leaving to go home to eat dinner and go to the gym (meaning in turn, they'd have to hire more people), or people would want more money.  At the end of the day, the bottom line is going to be the same.  

The advantage of paying people to do more work with free food and yoga and zip lines means that employees get tens of thousands of dollars of benefits in tax free perks.

It also fits in with the SV libertarian ethos.  Which unlike true libertarianism, is not really about deregulation.  It's about figuring out how to make regulations work for you personally so that you can carve out your own hyper-privatized paradise.  For example, the Google bus issue is the most notorious example.  A true libertarian might think that the government shouldn't run a transit company, but rather, a private company should exist that could provide public-like transit to everyone.  An SV libertarian wants to take that further.  They want their company to provide transit to them.  Because it's impractical for every company to build its own bus stops, it's to their benefit for public transit to exist, so they can use the public's bus stops to get on their private buses that their company gives them, even though they aren't paying into that system in rider fees.  

That same mentality is what is driving the popularity of these things.  Why go to yoga classes at the Y when you can go to them in the privacy of your own corporate paradise?  Why go for a jog in a public park when you company has bought land for you to run on there?    

The investors share this mentality, so that's why this shit continues.

Follow up question. Do these people never get sick of being around coworkers so much?

That is an excellent question.  I think the normal people do, and quit and go work for less-cult like places.  The douche bags stay because it is where they thrive, which in turn just strengthens the douche bag quotient, thereby encouraging even more normal people leave, getting them closer and closer to their goal of living in their own private douche bag state.

FWIW, I think a lot of the bigger, more established companies, like Apple, Adobe, etc are much more tolerable places -- they are bigger, so it's harder to have such a pervasive culture.  It's the smaller startups that are trying to emulate Google and steal their people away that tend to have these weird private cult-like operations that get overrun by douchebags. 

[penguingrrl]

“If there are ways that we can make their lives a little easier that don’t cost a lot and…don’t distance them from reality too much, I think it is a really nice gesture.”


ummm, how does this meet the definition of not being too distanced from reality?

[josieposy]

Nov 21, 2014 15:44:04 GMT -5 @mx said:

And here I'm getting the side eye for wanting to expense the lunch I bought for one of my reports before sending them to work on Ebola for 8 weeks.

Just try to expense a Slipe N Slide with it. When they protest just say "okay how about just lunch?"

[ESF]

Nov 21, 2014 15:42:17 GMT -5 lulu13 said:

It makes me sad to see SV seen in such negative light. I grew up in SJ and still live in the area and I have so many family members and friends, both male and female, who work at eBay, Google, Apple etc. and really love it. I know a lot of moms who have great flexibility at these companies too. Maybe it's our age and the fact that they've worked their way up the good chain for 20 years but it's not all bad. Thee are definitely issues and there is a lot if room for change but there is also a ton of opportunity in the area.

There definitely are a lot of great places to work in SV.  There's a lot of innovation, a lot of high paying jobs, and a lot of opportunity.  Some of the benefits are really good.  You are right that it is not all bad.

But increasingly, it is being overrun by a very vocal, very rich, and very well-connected bunch of selfish, entitled jerks.  Sexual harassment is out of control there.  Local businesses are going under as companies increasingly in-source services like lunch and dry cleaning.  Affordable housing is drying up because of the NIMBY voting habits and extreme wealth.  

There are a lot problems that are being caused by the tech boom there. People think just because Google has great maternity leave policies, Silicon Valley is this amazing liberal paradise, when nothing could be further from the truth.