The Word of mAn[S]o0r: Fringe Benefits

Some people say there are no jobs in the market, and that joblessness is on an all time high (i dont know who says this now.. but im pretty sure some people do). Yet there are others who say that they just cant seem to find people to work for them. Now theres a new cry going around (atleast in the states), how to keep people from leaving you once they join and go work for the competition? (employee retention).

Well, companies in the US are deciding to pull out all the stops and keep luring employees back day after day to work for them, and giving them all sort of benefits. Reported today by the Daily Times, companies are now giving their employees on the job massages and yoga classes to make them happy.

More companies are offering employees the on-site pleasures of massage and yoga, not just to make their staff happy but to be competitive and even boost the bottom line.

Such programs, once the provenance of nontraditional companies but now popular in bastions of business, help retain employees in a job market where they might easily leave to work for a competitor, companies say.

and

Companies are digging deeper into their pockets to pay for such benefits, said Meredith Stern, a partner at Infinite Massage in San Francisco. A survey by Massage Therapy Journal found at most companies that offer massage, more than half added it in the last five years.

In New York, a number of hedge funds offer employees massage or yoga during their work days. “It’s wonderful, it’s a stress reliever, it’s good for employee morale,” said a worker