It’s official: No one cares about your “cool” office perks

BY RICH BELLIS1

Does your office have beanbag chairs and frosé on tap? Cool. None of that matters.

A new LinkedIn survey of over 3,000 full-time U.S. workers confirms what many of us have suspected for years: Those funky perks employers tout as supposed emblems of a great work culture are actually empty totems that employees don’t really care about.

“One of the top factors most likely to keep professionals at their company for 5+ years,” LinkedIn researchers write in a summary of the findings shared this morning with Fast Company, “is having strong workplace benefits such as PTO, parental leave, and health insurance (44%). In comparison, the least enticing factor for keeping professionals at their current companies is having in-office perks such as food, game rooms, and gyms (19%).”

If you really want to attract and retain great, diverse talent, invest in the profoundly uncool things that employees actually want.