Productivity Confidential: The Employee Engagement Boost

Innovation in employee benefits has a long history. Take sabbaticals, a benefit that began in academic institutions. These long breaks allowed professors and researchers to take time off to pursue personal projects or simply recharge their creativity over the course of several months off. Those novel approaches are slowly inching themselves into the corporate world and companies from Patagonia to McDonald’s to Intel. And it’s not just sabbaticals that are growing in popularity, perks like unlimited PTO, 4-day work weeks, and company-funded personal experiences are becoming more widely accepted across industries. Company leaders see these perks as a way to give back to loyal personnel, and employees are increasingly searching out organizations that are embracing new approaches to time off.   

But it’s not as simple as awarding staff a bundle of PTO and walking away. How do you pick up the slack for key team members when work hours aren’t the same as extended leave? How do you decide when an employee is eligible for different tiers of perks? And how do you measure the “performance” of such unique benefits? In this episode, we talk to Mike DeFrino, CEO of Kimpton Hotels and Restaurants, about the benefits he’s implemented, the challenges they present, and how these benefits help keep employees engaged.