- Workers are prepared to accept a lower salary in exchange for perks
- But are firms still willing to offer them?
There are many writers who can’t function without a looming deadline to sharpen the mind. For others, workplace pressure is shouldered more unenthusiastically as a necessary part of the job.
If you are in the latter camp, you are not alone: a recent survey by German academics found that workers are willing to sacrifice pay if it means giving up stress. The 2022 paper from Markus Nagler, Johannes Rincke and Erwin Winkler found that respondents were willing to forgo 6 per cent of their wages to avoid frequent multitasking, and 10 per cent to avoid frequent deadlines.
What’s more, they found that higher pressure at work came with a compensating earnings boost, meaning a “sizable pay premium for high-pressure jobs”. According to the data, a switch from a zero-pressure job to a high-pressure job within the same occupation was associated with a 12 per cent increase in monthly earnings.
If you think that this sounds like a great deal, you probably work in a high-pressure industry yourself. Nagel and colleagues found evidence of workers ‘self sorting’ into environments that suit them: workers who faced pressure in their current jobs showed lower willingness to sacrifice pay to avoid pressure than those who did not.
Interestingly, workers were also happy to give up higher pay in exchange for perks. The study found that employees were willing to sacrifice around 8 per cent of their wages in exchange for the ability to work from home up to five days a week, and 5 per cent in exchange for a flexible schedule.
Data from the UK shows a similar pattern. April figures from careers site Reed.co.uk found that over a third of the 2,000 adults surveyed would be happy to take home less each year in exchange for a four-day week, while 26 per cent would sacrifice pay for more flexible working hours. 14 per cent would forgo pay for “better non-financial benefits, such as duvet days”, although a steely 31 per cent said that nothing would convince them to change jobs for a lower salary (see chart).
On-the-job perks boomed in the pandemic, as workers moved to home then hybrid working at breakneck speed. Typical bids to tempt workers back to the office included free coffee, free breakfast and guaranteed work-from-home days. At US tech firms, some of the offerings were even more outlandish: reported benefits included massages, games rooms and in-house laundry services. Google even offered events for employees’ dogs and a lavish ‘Doogleplex‘ park for dog-walking.
In December, US marketplace Care.com surveyed 500 senior HR leaders and found that “during the Great Resignation of 2021 and 2022, employers were desperately courting prospective employees and wooing existing ones, relying heavily on enhanced benefits to attract and retain workers”. But the pendulum could be swinging.
Care.com found that virtually all firms surveyed are “recalibrating” their company’s benefit strategies, while almost half plan to trim them this year. The report added that “in 2023, faced with an economic slowdown and a return to at least a semi-traditional workplace, some have been tempted to revert to old practices”. And the past few months have seen a rash of high-profile cuts to workplace perks. According to FT reports, Alphabet has cut 27 in-house massage therapists, while Twitter is transitioning to a “partially paid” catering service.
But despite recession fears, labour markets remain relatively tight. Could cutting perks make it harder for firms to hire and retain workers? Data from Reed.co.uk suggests not: while 32 per cent of UK job hunters look for flexible working, only 9 per cent of workers would be more likely to apply for a job if it offered free food and drink. Firms may find that cutting these ‘buzzy’ perks bothers workers less than they expect.
