ReportWire

Tag: perks

  • 2025 Graduates Are Facing the Toughest Job Market in Decades

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    The entire job market is in turmoil, we know, but a new report highlights that it’s worse for this year’s graduating class than for people starting their working lives. Most job seekers say the entire process of finding and then applying for work took much more effort. If your company is looking for fresh, young talent, this news could inspire you to change your own recruiting efforts.

    The new study, from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) and Texas-based recruitment service Indeed, found that on average Class of 2025 graduates sent out 10 job applications for every six that the Class of 2024 sent, HRDive reports. They were also sending out applications earlier, beginning around 6.5 months before graduating, compared to an average of 6 months in 2024. This might suggest they’re conscious of the worsening state of the employment market, but NACE said it thinks the opposite is true.

    In a press release accompanying the report, the group noted that the mean number of job offers this year’s graduates received after sending out applications was 0.78, a significantly low figure, and lower than last year’s 0.83 and seriously down from the average 1.13 and 1.14 offers the Classes of 2023 and 2022 landed during the same phase of their life. But compared to last year, graduates were keener to accept these offers: 86.7 percent of seniors who received an offer accepted it, compared to 81.2 percent last year and 85.1 percent in 2023. The differences here are more subtle, but still point to a graduating year that’s slightly keener to secure a job sooner rather than later.

    Graduates were, compared to earlier classes, “more likely to say they were unsure about their plans, and more were planning to enter the military, suggesting they were unsure about private-sector employment,” NACE noted. Meanwhile many of this year’s graduating class understand the value of experiential education, and 84 percent of the cohort took part in an “internship, co-op, or other experiential learning program” the report said, also noting that students “overwhelmingly” said internships were the top way to develop their skills. 

    Curiously, despite other reports suggesting that AI use during the job application process is soaring to the point that recruiters are overwhelmed, fewer than one in three students in the NACE survey said they’d used the controversial tech during the application process, and the report says only 22 percent of employers used the tech themselves during recruiting. 

    The big lesson for your company here is that the changes in the job market affecting new graduates may impact the business of finding and recruiting new talent. The pool of available candidates may be bigger than expected, and the number of applications you receive for open posts may be up compared to what your HR team has seen in recent years — affecting the time and effort they need to put in to downselect to the final choice. 

    Meanwhile, a separate report again highlights that the kind of perks you may have to offer to attract Gen-Z workers may be different from those that appealed to older generations of worker. Professional services company KMPG’s new U.S. CEO Timothy Walsh is trying to lure Gen-Z workers to the firm by offering up a new office suite that’s “outfitted with moody lounges and a barista bar,” according to a report at Fortune. Having joined the firm as an intern over 30 years ago, Walsh has seen many aspects of the business change—including the new push for entry-level workers to manage entire teams of AI agents. Refurbished headquarters are an effort to try to attract workers to work in the office more per week, as opposed to strict RTO mandates like those from companies like Amazon and JPMorgan, but they also are designed to facilitate hybrid work setups, since these remain popular. 

    Walsh is clearly aware of this fact, and also that Gen-Z staff are tending to look for more meaningful job perks than appeal to older age cohorts, as well as employers that facilitate their desire for better work-life balance. All of this could feed into the way you try to appeal to the Class of 2025.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • How Your Company Can Retain Talent as Child Care Costs Drive Women Out of the Workforce

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    Today, DEI is a loaded term in a fraught politcal and cultural climate, but current disfavor doesn’t change the fact is that inequalities of many types persist in the workplace. Cue a new ABC report that highlights how women are actively leaving the U.S. workforce in increasing numbers because the cost of child care is so high. “It’s the 21st century,” you may be thinking, “shouldn’t this be impacting men as caregivers on an equal footing?” Explain that to the nearly half-million women who’ve dropped out of the labor market since January, the report says.

    The surge in women workers deciding that the working life isn’t for them has been “driven largely by women with young children,” Minnesota’s ABC affiliate 5 Eyewitness News reports. Some 450,000 women have followed this path since the start of 2025, and the news outlet points to one clear reason: “the high cost of daycare has been to blame.”

    The report quotes financial planner Bjorn Amundson of Saint Paul-based financial planning firm Quarry Hill Advisors, who suggests that before families make this big decision they should split expenses across different accounts that reflect today’s polarizing financial realities. Mortgages, for example, won’t change, but, as Amundson notes, “discretionary expenses” will — do you really need that Netflix subscription as well as the HBO and Apple TV ones? So it may make sense to practice having one parent at home for a while, “and see what it feels like before you pull the trigger. It’s one of the toughest decisions you make as a parent.”

    But there’s a bigger trend at play here, with KSTP pointing out that the loss of so many female workers could not only “erase the historic gains women have made since the pandemic, but also reshape the labor force for years to come.” A BBC report from August that tackled this trend noted that “after years of leaning in and pursuing career growth, an emerging slice of college-educated women are either going part time or quitting their jobs entirely.” At the time, the BBC said data showed that between “January and July 2025, 212,000 women left the workforce at the same time that 44,000 men entered it.”

    Meanwhile, other reports suggest one driving factor for this trend is the emergence of the “sandwich generation.” As Business Insider recently put it, the “growing share of American workers” are facing a difficult reality of “caring for both aging parents and children at the same time.” 

    Can we blame the “tradwife” trend for some of this — a conservative-leaning notion that women’s place really is in the home? The trend, science news site Phys.org contends, is all about a “modern-day housewife who embraces traditional gender roles, typically focusing on homemaking, childcare and supporting her husband, often while sharing her idealized lifestyle on social media.” 

    But a recent study highlighted in this report suggests that there are deeper, non-political reasons involved that play into the explanation of why so many women are leaving the U.S. workforce. In a survey of 1,000 younger women age 18–34, researchers found that “what attracts them to tradwife content is less the male-breadwinner female-caregiver model and more the aesthetic of simplicity, leisure and escape from the pressures of increasingly demanding yet insecure work.”

    Meanwhile, a new op-ed at the Boston Globe shines a light on a totally different facet of this issue: it may be “provocative” to say it, but “the smartest workplaces usually have more women,” the article contends. 

    Why should you care about all this?

    Because, amid complex, changing geopolitical circumstances, the reality is that if your company’s benefits and compensation policies result in excluding more women than you may have thought, you’re simply missing out on a long list of potentially fabulous job candidates.

    Citigroup’s CEO Jane Fraser landed her company in the spotlight this year for precisely this reason: by embracing hybrid-friendly work policies that are appealing to working mothers, Fraser considered she’s putting her company at a competitive advantage for hiring talented workers who otherwise may stay at home, or seek jobs at rival firms.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Manufacturing Companies Are Helping Employees With Child Care. Should Your Company Join Them?

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    Manufacturing Companies Are Helping Employees With Child Care. Should Your Company Join Them?

    Child care remains a constant concern for American workers, as costs soar and some companies insist on return-to-office mandates, backing away from some of the more childcare-friendly remote and hybrid working models that were adopted almost universally during the Covid pandemic. Now a new report says that, in response to changing child care demands from employees, some big manufacturers are directly investing in child care support for employees. It’s a shift that might prompt you to reconsider some of the workplace perks your company offers, in the hope of helping your staff and also attracting talented job applicants. 

    The report, at industry news site HRDive, includes a story about a human resources worker at Iowa-based agricultural equipment maker Sukup Manufacturing Co. struggling to juggle work, commuting and child care — because the care facility was 45 miles away from her workplace. Emily Schmitt, chief administrative officer and general counsel at Sukup told HRDive that the struggle eventually became too much for her and she left. Schmitt also said that at the time the company was “having issues of people not being able to stay employed in our Sheffield location because there wasn’t child care availability” nearby, or at all — the report says about 23 percent of state residents live in “child care deserts.”

    So Sukup formed an alliance with the local school district and bank, sought and won a matching grant from the state to complement the $1.25 million the group was injecting into creating a new child care center, and built their own facility, with space for 112 children.

    The report notes that this small manufacturer is just one example of a slow-developing trend, with major companies like Toyota and Intel in the lead. These big name manufacturers are said to be “expanding their partnerships with child care providers,” partly to boost workplace culture (working parents are likely to be less stressed if they know their children are being looked after nearby during the working day) and also to retain workers. The report quotes a study from the Manufacturing Institute where almost half the respondents said working hours flexibility (friendly to ever-changing childcare needs) was an “important” reason for them to remain with their particular employer.

    But it’s not just in the manufacturing industry that leaders are thinking about better support for working parents. In March this year, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser landed her financial services company in the spotlight for good reasons: Fraser had made a deliberate choice to shun the industry’s RTO trend and instead retain some flexible working rules that had been in place during the pandemic. It wasn’t merely a phase, Fraser said, and it was instead a “new way of working.” Fraser also said that she was using the policy as a way of attracting working parents to her company — it offers Citi a “competitive advantage” in the job market, Fraser says, because it’s appealing to talented working mothers who may not be keen to return to work under rival banks’ stricter in-office working rules.

    In May an Associated Press report also noted numerous U.S. companies were offering on-site child care due to the “fraught” child care landscape.

    All of this may prompt savvy company leaders to ponder if they’re supporting their staff with children properly. Because there are numerous benefits to be had. In April last year, a report from Small Business Majority, a small business advocacy group in Washington D.C., found that 59 percent of small business owners said that barriers to child care access were impacting their business, blunting growth opportunities.

    A quarter of founders admitted they’d had to shut down their companies and return to working in more traditional employee roles because they couldn’t juggle child care and work. And in July an expert reported that some companies are seeing an effective return on investment of $4 for every $1 spent on supporting their working parent employees. 

    In a tumultuous working world, rocked by stresses like layoffs, ever-encroaching AI and other social and political upheavals, supporting your working parent staff may be a very sound business policy—those workers are stressed enough without having to worry about who’s looking after their kids.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Why You Should Let Financially Savvy Female Employees Guide Your Company’s Benefits

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    Perks on the job are usually a nice bonus to have, and can actually help boost performance, as a recent report on offering frontline workers food and work-sponsored outings shows. Other perks hit the headlines for different, sometimes quirky reasons, like the current trend for of Silicon Valley startups letting people go shoeless in the office. Now a new report focuses on how some benefits have a more direct appeal to working women. Its findings could make a difference at your company.

    The most significant finding in the new data shows that women with a high degree of financial literacy are the least satisfied with their company’s benefits programs.

    The data, from Oregon-based insurance and investments provider The Standard, show that three-quarters of women who identify themselves as highly financially aware said employers really need to consider benefits more carefully, including offering caregiving benefits, according to HRDive. More than half of the survey respondents said they should also have different benefits from other members of their household so that their overall needs are met. We can interpret this as meaning that one partner’s job has benefits like flexible hours that line up with the school run, while the other partner’s work offers perks that, for example, offers an end-of-year bonus that will help during the holiday season.

    The report also notes that as women’s wages rise, their confidence in their own financial acumen rises, and this confidence leads to dissatisfaction with company benefits. Higher wages also correlate with “women feeling more limited in their choices for family and career,” the report says. Data, for example, show that for women earning over $200,000, 35 percent admitted to wanting more children but felt they couldn’t afford to expand their families, compared to just 29 percent of women earning under $50,000. Meanwhile, 42 percent of women in the top pay bracket said they’d like to shift their careers, compared to 35 percent of lower-paid women, suggesting that the top earners definitely feel more stuck. 

    Anecdotally, this makes sense: higher wages can be perceived as “golden handcuffs,” and taking time off to have children may impact working women’s household earnings (especially if an employer doesn’t offer family-centric perks). 

    The data also show that women report less confidence in understanding benefits and matters like insurance. That’s important, because two-thirds of women are the primary providers of household-related benefits, and this figure is 72 percent for women making less than $50,000 — the group that also reports the lowest level of financial confidence.

    The report quotes The Standard’s senior vice president for External Affairs, Marketing and Communications, Justin Delany, who outlined why the data is important for companies considering tweaks to their staff benefits packages. “To be most effective at retaining and engaging employees, workplace benefits need to meet the unique needs of different employee populations,” Delaney said, adding that the data show “employers have a significant gap — and opportunity — in meeting the needs of women employees with tailored employee benefits and financial education.”

    The report also points out that tailoring benefits packages for women, as well as benefits education programs to help them better understand what’s on offer, could help people choose their best options. Offering flexible benefits packages, tailored to women workers’ needs, could be key to recruiting and then retaining female staff.

    In March this year, for example, Citigroup CEO Jane Fraser landed her company’s benefits system in the spotlight because, unusually among Wall Street firms, she decided to make a concerted effort to support working mothers. While many other industry giants are pushing for strict return-to-office rules, citing vague team-building notions to explain the mandates, Fraser told her staff they’re sticking to the hybrid working model that evolved during the pandemic, allowing most workers to be remote at least two days a week. As well as being what she thinks is truly a “new way of working,” the policy is also extremely family-friendly, and may specifically appeal to working mothers who (as The Standard’s data underlines) typically have more family duties than male workers. 

    What can you take away from this for your company?

    First, if your company offers flexible benefits packages, then you may want to offer, repeat or maybe even rejig an in-house educationaa program explaining the benefits to your staff, particularly since The Standard’s data show women have less confidence in their understanding of these topics.

    Secondly, you have an opportunity to carefully tailor your benefits packages to appeal to female staff — particularly your higher-paid workers. Offering suitable benefits could act as a competitive advantage in the job market, and you could attract talented workers who’d perhaps balk at rival firms’ less-promising benefits packages. It may even help you retain your most valuable female workers for the long term.

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    Kit Eaton

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  • Crappy employee “perks” that don’t even deserve a 2-week notice (40 Photos)

    Crappy employee “perks” that don’t even deserve a 2-week notice (40 Photos)

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    Camry

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  • Microsoft Is Giving Employees Unlimited Time Off

    Microsoft Is Giving Employees Unlimited Time Off

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    Microsoft is starting the new year with a generous new policy for its U.S. employees.


    Stephen Brashear | Getty Images

    Microsoft Headquarters in Redmond, Washington

    Starting January 16, Microsoft is implementing a “Discretionary Time Off” policy, which gives employees unlimited time off without needing to accrue vacation days. Any employees who currently have unused PTO days will get a one-time payout in April.

    “How, when and where we do our jobs has dramatically changed,” Kathleen Hogan, Microsoft’s chief people officer, wrote in a memo obtained by The Verge. “And as we’ve transformed, modernizing our vacation policy to a more flexible model was a natural next step.”

    Related: I Was a Skeptic, Now I am Convinced Unlimited PTO is Good Business

    The policy only applies to salaried employees in the U.S. and excludes overseas workers and hourly employees. Microsoft says it’s difficult to offer unlimited time off to hourly and foreign workers due to differing laws and regulations, according to The Verge.

    The new policy comes as more companies have adopted flexible work schedules following the pandemic. When lockdowns rocked workplace norms irrevocably, what followed was The Great Resignation, where large numbers of workers left jobs in search of a more balanced lifestyle. As employees set new standards, companies have revved up perks and benefits to attract and retain talent in a tight labor market where many individuals seek more than just a paycheck — and unlimited time off is not a bad place to start.

    Related: How Companies are Offering Perks to Their Remote Workforce

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    Madeline Garfinkle

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  • Rerouted Announces Rerouted Ultra: A Year of Gear and Perks

    Rerouted Announces Rerouted Ultra: A Year of Gear and Perks

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    Ultra is the newest evolution of Rerouted. Rerouted is a second-hand gear platform that is leveraging contemporary technology to make second-hand painless and crazy easy for buyers and sellers. Ultra is a year-long program designed to reduce every pain point people face using existing marketplaces.

    Press Release
    –


    updated: Dec 9, 2022


    ALBUQUERQUE, N.M., December 9, 2022 (Newswire.com)
    –
    Rerouted Co. is rolling out Rerouted Ultra. Rerouted Ultra is the newest way to support the circular economy. Ultra is the easiest and cheapest way to buy and sell second-hand outdoor gear. No shipping costs, no commission fees and unlimited support when people want to buy and sell gear for the entirety of 2023. This program launched with 500 seats on Monday, Dec. 5 and will be available through Dec. 31 12:00 a.m. PST.  

    Ultra is the newest evolution of Rerouted. Rerouted is a second-hand gear platform that is leveraging contemporary technology to make second-hand painless and crazy easy for buyers and sellers. This is a year-long program designed to reduce every pain point people face using existing marketplaces. 

    Rerouted is excited to highlight six key features of their Ultra program:

    • Zero Commissions – sell any piece of outdoor gear, get 100% of the asking price
    • Free Shipping – buy any gear you want and Rerouted covers the shipping fees
    • Monthly Seller Tips, Tricks and Workshops – get support to make as much money as possible selling gear on Rerouted
    • Early Access to Gear Tracker – a new feature Rerouted is releasing early next year to help you find exactly the right gear for you, and get notified immediately when it arrives on the site
    • Partner Perks – include a $65 WFA course w/ Base Medical, and many more are in the works.
    • Limited time upcycled Rerouted swag

    Chap Grubb, Rerouted’s CEO and Founder, said this about the mission behind Ultra:

    “Recycling, upcycling and reselling are key to a sustainable future. Our team believes deeply that the reason gear collects dust in people’s garages is because it is too difficult to buy & sell online. Choosing second-hand first should be an easy choice for people that care about the environment. We are psyched to make it easier than ever to save gear from the landfill and help people create their own wilderness adventures. Plus, free shipping and zero commissions are unheard of in online second hand shopping. We love being the first to offer this.”

    To join Rerouted in their mission is to embrace the Circular Economy. Ultra is the newest and best community to buy and sell outdoor gear online. All Rerouted Ultra perks will start immediately upon purchase and run through 2023. Check it out today. www.rerouted.co/rerouted-ultra

    Rerouted is an online platform that is developing tools & software that will empower people, local gear stores and marketplaces to get gear back out to the next generation of wilderness advocates.

    Source: Rerouted Co

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  • Bring People Back With The Most Unexpected Office Perks: Art And Beauty

    Bring People Back With The Most Unexpected Office Perks: Art And Beauty

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    There’s plenty of press right now about people who are voting with their feet and refusing to come of the office—even when their leaders say it’s required. And there’s no shortage of media coverage about which aspects of the office matter the most in bringing people back.

    But there’s are a couple surprising elements of the work experience you may never have considered: Artwork and connections to cultural activities.

    While it’s lovely to wander a museum on a Saturday afternoon or enjoy a sculpture park on a crisp fall day, art is usually not what people consider when they think of the ideal office experience. But with all the disruption in how people work, where they work and why they work—reimaging the office with unexpected perks of art and culture makes perfect sense.

    A new study by Brookfield Properties, examined the impacts of enriched offices—those which featured art, sculpture, beautiful design and elements which made them aesthetically rewarding—beautiful places people wanted to be. They also considered places where people were brought together with cultural, social or wellbeing events (think: art walks, community/company gatherings or meet-the-artist events).

    They found big differences in peoples’ productivity, satisfaction and creativity based on these experiences.

    Great Offices Deliver Great Results

    The great debate about where people do their best work is in full swing, but a critical element of the discussion is the nature of the office.

    Satisfaction

    • Only 38% of those surveyed liked the atmosphere of their office, but for those with access to cultural, wellbeing or social events, the percentage rose to 63%.
    • Fully 41% said their office is badly designed and 37% said it is uncomfortable. Those most likely to report these experiences work in offices which lack beauty or aesthetic design elements.

    Inspiration and Creativity

    • Only 24% of people feel inspired by their jobs, but this jumps to 39% when people work in enriched offices.
    • Overall, only 18% of people said their offices encouraged them to be creative in their work, and only 10% felt a sense of creative energy. But when they had enriched spaces or access to cultural or wellbeing events, 32% felt inspired and creative.

    Effectiveness and Wellbeing

    • A large percentage, 64% said cultural and social events in the office helped them work more effectively.
    • Fully 69% said having interesting and visually attractive art pieces in the workplace contributed to their wellbeing.
    • And 77% said their wellbeing is improved by having interesting social, cultural, wellbeing events in the workplace.

    Great Offices Draw People In

    The quality of the work experience makes a big difference in people’s motivation to come to the office—especially when the opportunity for socializing or drawing boundaries are involved.

    • The study found 62% of people preferred working in an office rather than working from home. And the percentage rose to 75% when they worked in offices which were richer in terms of art, design and aesthetics.
    • Socializing was also a draw. Specifically, 77% of people enjoyed coming into the office so they could connect with colleagues, and 72% were motivated by the presence of colleagues in the office. Three quarters (72%) of people also said they preferred the office when they had access to cultural, social or wellbeing events. In addition, 66% said working with their leaders inspired them.
    • Work-life boundaries were also positively impacted. Fully 66% said coming into an office gave them a good delineation between work and life, and this percentage rose to 76% when their office conditions were more enriched.

    Enriching Offices

    The conclusions from this study are clear: Great office experiences draw people in and contribute to positive results.

    Spaces

    Companies have the opportunity to create great work experiences with plenty of choice and control and which offer a wide variety of settings to support all kinds of work (think: focus, collaboration, learning, socializing and rejuvenating). In addition, they can display art and feature areas where people can make, hack and bring an artistic bent to their efforts. They can also ensure nature is part of the experience with the texture, color and beauty brought into the space with elements like water, daylight, plants and views.

    Activation

    Organizations can also activate their spaces with events which help people feel connected to the region, the company and their coworkers. Events featuring wine (or iced tea) and cheese with executives for employees work well, but also think broadly about the organization’s role in the community. Invite the community in for a fund-raising auction, host an art fair on the company grounds or sponsor an evening celebrating local dance customs.

    One food company in the eastern U.S. hosts lunches for community members once per week during the summer months, and a financial firm in the pacific northwest opens their café to community members as a work club on Mondays and Fridays. A pharma company in the western U.S. invites employees’ children in for Halloween trick or treating.

    Art and Beauty

    Organizations can also be creative about how they make art part of the work experience. One tech organization in the Midwest gives every employee the opportunity to spend a stipend on a piece of art of the employee’s choice which becomes part of the corporate collection. Their grounds are vast, and they offer bike rentals and opportunities for the community to do self-guided tours of the facility’s outdoor art and architecture on weekends.

    A manufacturing company in western Canada displays (only) art from local artists. At a healthcare organization in the south, artists regularly visit the facility offering to do quick oil paintings of patients and families. An insurance firm in the Midwest has one of the largest corporate art collections and they open their doors to the community once a year to put their collection on display. A consumer goods company with nature trails featuring sculptures, invites community members to use the space alongside employees who use them as well.

    In Sum

    Great experiences help people connect with others and feel part of a community which is larger than themselves—contributing to motivation. Beauty is meaningful as well. People value a positive aesthetic experience, and they gain energy from their surroundings. All of these make a well-designed and an intentionally inspiring experience worth the effort.

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    Tracy Brower, Contributor

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