Gyms, comfy break rooms, cafeterias with vegetarian fare, a climbing wall: these workplace perks aren’t just for offices anymore.

Companies have been adding such amenities to workplaces in an effort to attract talented employees, and keep them from leaving. But the benefits are making their way into warehouses and manufacturing facilities.

“The biggest challenge faced by companies today is attracting and retaining labor,” says Rich Thompson, who leads the global Supply Chain & Logistics Solutions team at JLL. “If you’re going to be in a nice working environment – with restaurants you enjoy, with a state-of-the-art gym – you will put more weight on joining that company.”

Thompson notes an industrial distribution center on the outskirts of Toyko that has integrated amenities like a rock climbing wall, a daycare center and common spaces that you would typically see in office buildings.

“And why not? People want those amenities. They’re an attraction,” he says.

Attracting labor in a shortage

For years, office landlords have been designing spaces with a focus on employee wellbeing, happiness, and ultimately, productivity.

But vast industrial properties on the periphery of cities – which house and ship the products that populate our everyday lives – typically have been developed for functionality: getting goods in and out as efficiently as possible.

Break rooms often have “folding aluminum chairs and a vending machine selling potato chips, and that’s it,” Thompson says.

The rise of e-commerce is changing that. There has been a proliferation of high-tech distribution centers that require legions of skilled workers. In the U.S., warehouse employment has risen 90 percent since the start of the millennium, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The need for workers to manage complex operations, compounded by the more recent skilled labor shortage in America, has left warehouse operators hungry to attract talented workers to their facilities. So they’re providing amenities, from standard offerings like comfortable cafeterias to luxe perks like bouldering gyms, Thompson says.

The necessary ingredients

The number of warehouses with benefits is still slim. But with American corporations vying for staffers from a tight labor pool – national unemployment now stands at 3.7 percent – the shift is coming, Thompson says.