Benefits and Their Whys
These are the benefits I plan to offer, next time I’m someone’s employer:
| Benefit | Reasoning | Priority |
|---|---|---|
| Competitive Salary and Bonus Structure | Duh | Absolute necessity |
| Full healthcare benefits (covering 100% of physical health, vision, dental, and mental health) | The US sorely needs and can easily afford free, universal healthcare. | Absolute necessity |
| Unlimited PTO (paid time off) + mandatory minimum time taken off | Unlimited PTO is fairly common for tech startups these days, but because of our society’s workaholic mentality, people rarely take that time off. Encouraging a minimum amount taken off (ex: ~2 weeks a year) would be beneficial for everyone. | Absolute necessity |
| Family leave (and pet leave?) | According to Wikipedia, “The United States, Suriname, Papua New Guinea, and a few island countries in the Pacific Ocean are the only countries in the United Nations that do not require employers to provide paid time off for new parents.” Sigh (note: this should include parental, adoption, foster care, surrogacy, etc.) | Absolute necessity |
| 401(k) matching & retirement | Seems standard | Absolute necessity |
| Inclusivity for and prioritization of all genders, sexes, sexual orientations, races, ethnicities, social classes, abilities, castes, etc. Just treat all people well, please. | This shouldn’t even need explanation | Absolute necessity |
| 1 hour/week during the workweek for dedicated mental health time (encouraged for therapy) | Every single person on the planet would benefit from seeing a regular, competent, free therapist. If mental health is universally covered, we should be encouraging everyone to take advantage of it. | Absolute necessity |
| Public transportation covered | A lot more people than you’d expect don’t have access to cars | Necessity |
| Engaging and exciting work | This is great for people who find fulfillment out of their work, but not completely mandatory IMO, since there are a lot of people who see work as a means to an end for their lifestyles, and that’s a perfectly acceptable way of living. But giving people exciting work to do, if they want it, is a good thing. | Recommended |
| Location-flexible and remote-first | This should be fairly self-explanatory for people in a post-pandemic world, but now that we have the tools to sustain remote work, it’s something that everyone can and should be taking advantage of. | Recommended |
| Democratically elected leadership (or some type of enforced “downward accountability”) | Currently, CEOs and the people in control of companies have almost unchallenged power. While unions help to organize labor into receiving fair working conditions, treating companies like we do other leadership systems and giving everyone a voice would drastically improve inequality. | Recommended |
Note: this list is ongoing, so it may see updates as you continually check on it