Since an article I wrote in June of 2009 called “How a foosball table can kill your startup” is still sparking attention and conversation, I think the time is ripe for me to expand on the topic. Yes, I still believe that tchotchke “benefits” do nothing but waste money. Instead, use your resources to attract new, retain your best talent, and improve your team’s happiness.
Here are additional issues for us to consider:
- If we tracked the usage of Guitar Hero setups, foosball tables, pinball machines, etc., we would see that utilization of them is not really worth their cost and the rent we pay for the space they take up.
- Often the toy/activity choice we make is driven by what we personally like. I highly doubt anyone actually thinks about how employees from other demographic groups perceive them. Therefore, we unconsciously create an environment of discrimination.
- Innovation happens outside of the walls of our offices. Encourage your employees to get outside and network with their customers and spend more time with their families.
- Employees are not stupid! We may be able to attract them with these “benefits”, but the novelty wears off quickly. The deeper we can tap into satisfying the needs of our employees, the more likely they will stay with us. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is often ignored at our own peril.
So what do I suggest?
- There is a MUCH higher ROI on well-being focused benefits. E.g. stock your office with free healthy snacks and drinks. Motivate staff to engage in group sports. Spend the budget on group company outings organized by the staff themselves. As an operations person, I always focus on keeping my team healthy, happy, motivated, and engaged.
- Spontaneous rewards have tremendous ROI! Focus on rewarding exceptional performance the moment it happens (not months away during performance reviews). I have personally seen it do wonders to morale.
- Enable your staff to be able to work in other locations from time to time and empower them to spend more time with customers (existing ones or prospects). This takes a lot of planning and thinking through to execute well, but it has fantastic ROI and increases innovation and employee loyalty.
NOTE: the dynamics are a lot different in creative industries like industrial design, advertising agencies, marketing and communications companies, etc. Talent employed in these types of companies have different needs and motivations.
Hi, my name is Apolinaras Sinkevicius, but most call me Apollo. I am the guy who takes care of the day-to-day business and technology of rapidly growing companies. 12 years in managing the "nuts and bolts" of companies and being a steward of corporate cultures makes me a seasoned operations professional and right hand person to founders and CEOs.
It seems like your point on the heterogeny of needs is the key here. I started to criticize your suggestion for healthy snacks and group sports along the grounds that basically, my product team wouldn't like it. Snacks would be good, but overtly healthy snacks, not so much and team sports are right out. I know personally though that foosball and rock band would go over well because of the very particular composition of our team. Really though, the important thing isn't what the specific “benefits” are so much as the process of taking peoples' actual preferences in to account.
It sounds like in you're assuming that your team is mostly composed of people that prefer to compartmentalize work and non-work or maybe just people with families. In that case, it definitely doesn't seem positive to introduce something they don't value that highly (rockband, foosball), especially if it's lieu of something they do value (telecommuting, company events they can bring their family to). I'd like to point out though, that your assumption about where innovation happens is unlikely to be true across all companies, and especially amongst startups. There is a balance to be had.
As far as a foosball table being a distraction and reducing efficiency, I personally find that unlikely, at least when it comes to building software. With highly creative and thought-intensive activities, I'm a much bigger believer in morale and tools/processes/skill as primary efficiency drivers as opposed to removing distractions that people could voluntarily engage in. http://baselinescenario.com/2010/02/11/the-myth... is along those lines. I think you'd probably agree that blocking twitter to stop software engineers from wasting time would be a bad move and I would say worrying about a foosball table is of a similar mindset.
If you have a group of 25 year old single dudes who love video games, pushing great health benefits, company daycare, free granola and your company softball league isn't going to garner a lot of positive morale
I'd say don't be any harder on foosball tables than you are on other things that might discriminate against your particular team.
Thanks for your detailed comment. I definitely appreciate the effort you've put in!
Let me address couple of points your bring up.
In a tiny sub-10 person startups you are bound to have possibly just one demographic group on your team. But when you start growing, the classical white 20-something single males become actually a minority. The higher the caliber the talent you start bringing in, the more you will notice they no longer fit into a handful of groups. In the last software development company we got to grow to 100+ people I can tell you I had probably 12+ demographic groups of people. We had Xboxes etc. Nobody bothered to use them (if those who were prolific gamers). People stayed with us, even though I don't think we were the highest paying company, because we looked past the BS and tried to make them happier, more prosperous, and motivated them to take care of themselves.
Re. compartmentalizing work and life. There is a solid body of real peer-reviewed scientific research showing that knowledge workers become inefficient and start putting out garbage somewhere above 40-50 hour work week. Unless you have a team of wunderkinds (that come with tons of other abnormalities), as a leader of the company you should be kicking them out to go socialize, enjoy life, and come back re-charged.
And re. your last comment there. If all you have is “25 year old single dudes who love video games”, I would be worried about the work product. London Business School did research on this subject and has shown that diverse teams are about 50% more efficient (that includes gender, race, and age diversity), since they are less prone to groupthink, same re-occurring mistakes, etc.
Thanks again for your comment!
Great thinking. One of the fallacies of the dotcom boom is that work can be a substitute for, well, a life outside work. Encouraging your workers to pursue a rich family experience is better than a Friday afternoon playing foosball with your coworkers.