Posted by Julia Cooper on San Francisco Business Times
It’s no secret that perks are a hallmark of working for tech companies, which offer the premium extras to lure top talent.
Fully stocked kitchens, prepared meals on site and gym allowances appear to be standard, but many up the ante by offering unlimited vacations, time off to volunteer for personal causes, pet insurance and in-office accoutrements like kegerators to quench employees’ hankering for draft beer on special occasions.
And game rooms are pretty ubiquitous, at least according to the 115 companies responding to the survey for our largest San Francisco technology employers list, published Friday in the San Francisco Business Times.
Here is a sample from our research of a few neat perks and amenities that makes working for a San Francisco tech company cool:
Salesforce.com: Every employee gets six paid days off every year to volunteer, plus donations up to $5,000 are matched by the Salesforce Foundation; unlimited gummy bears in office kitchens.
Adobe Systems: Educational reimbursement up to $10,000 a year; $10,000 matching gift program.
Dolby Laboratories: Early screenings of films at Dolby theaters in office.
Airbnb: $2,000 per year travel credit on Airbnb.
StubHub: Free ticket raffles for sporting events, concerts and theater events in the local area.
Trulia: Mind-Body-Spirit Day and Bring Your Parents to Work Day; Philanthropy Club; monthly beer bashes with executives.
DocuSign: A “tranquility room” with soft lighting and water fountain for mothers or people who want to chill out; Nerf guns.
Practice Fusion: A company-provided FitBit for each employee.
Dropbox: On-site haircuts; complete music studio equipped with drums, piano, amplifiers, etc.; board game nights; pingpong; console gaming rooms; DDR (yep, a real machine); Starcraft; pool.
Quantcast: An annual home brewing competition for the company’s beer and wine connoisseurs; employees can cruise the halls on multi-colored mini scooters.
Eventbrite: Flexible “Take the Time You Need” vacation policy; a smoothie bar with a VitaMix blender and fresh fruits and veggies provided.
Atlassian: Five days of paid volunteer leave — employees receive five days of paid time off per year to volunteer for causes they’re passionate about.
Fitbit: On-site fitness classes – Zumba, bootcamp and hip-hop dance. Coming soon – martial arts; sponsored race fees and trampoline dodge ball team.
Twilio: Free Kindle, $30 monthly toward Kindle books.
Github: World travel — if an employee is invited to speak at a conference, GitHub will cover the trip for the employee and another GitHubber to go.
OpenDNS: A week-long vacation on OpenDNS’ dime on an employee’s five-year anniversary.
Pocket Gems: Open vacation policy; each employee gets $100 to buy something cool for the office; each employee gets a mobile device of their choice paid for by the company.
TRUSTe: Holds a quarterly raffle where the winner must take a week off and the company will add $1,000 to the employee’s paycheck to cover vacation expenses.
Ticketfly: $200 to spend on any live events you want; three days per year to devote to volunteering to a cause of your choice.
Taulia Inc.: Brand new pair of orange sneakers on two-year anniversary.
Clean Power Finance: Employee discount on a third-party financed solar system should they choose to go solar.
UberConference: Flexible work schedule policy —Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays employees work together in the office, while Tuesdays and Thursdays are work-from-home days.
Bizo: Rock the House Awards — Every employee can give out two awards, each worth $50, to others at the company who have gone above/beyond to collaborate. Award recipients are entered into a raffle and can win money towards a lifelong goal/dream.
Crowdtilt: Hackations — opportunities to take a team on a “vacation” somewhere to hack away on new product ideas or projects.
Piston Cloud Computing: A beautiful, awesome hat of your choosing (bowler, fedora, panama) that is adorned via a hatting ceremony.
Magenic: Every year Magenic gives a tech gift to all employees.
SoundCloud: Global exchange program — employees have opportunity to live and work from another office for a quarter (offices include Berlin, London, NYC, San Francisco and Sofia, Bulgaria).
Source: http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2014/02/cool-tech-company-perks.html?page=all