Luring new employees continues to be a struggle for many companies, and some San Fernando Valley-area businesses are contracting with benefits providers for offerings designed to make their job listings stand out. Catered lunches, pool parties and pet care are among the enticements – which also may help retain workers.
For example, ServiceTitan Inc., a Glendale-based software company for contractors, offers a breastfeeding shipping service through Maven Clinic Co. for new parents to use on work trips. ServiceTitan pays for Maven’s travel kits, including TSA-friendly ice packs, to safely store breast milk.
Isha Vij, vice president at Maven Clinic, said the company’s offerings don’t necessarily substitute for a comprehensive health care package, but fills the gaps many new parents fall into that hinder smooth returns to work.
“We offer these various kits to employers and employees so that they really don’t have to deal with one of the millions of challenges that they’re going to go through when they get on the road for business travel,” Vij said.
According to Vij, even as the threat of a looming recession caused companies to consider consolidating benefit vendors, Maven has seen a surge in business.
Last year, the virtual women’s health clinic partnered with Blue Shield of California to open its service to more than half of the insurance giant’s membership, and Vij said a large concentration of clients resides in the state.
ServiceTitan isn’t alone in offering new parents a smooth onramp back to fulltime work after starting a family. The advertising data platform Disqo Inc. equipped a room for nursing mothers on the job and offers both paid paternal and maternal leave.
On top of that, Disqo brings in catered lunches for its Glendale office staff and sponsors company outings around the town, including a Malibu pool party.
Employers also understand that many Angelenos place importance on the emotional well-being of their pets. A number of companies offer pet insurance that covers vet visits and treatment for behavioral issues, such as aggression or separation anxiety.
Glendale-based health care software service company Reveeler Inc. this year began including pet insurance as a voluntary supplement to its benefits portfolio.
According to Jay Ackerman, Reveeler’s chief executive, the company has hired 120 people this year and hopes to fill 30 more positions by the end of the year. His company doubled the size of its Glendale office in July.
Ackerman admitted that top talent still asks for remote work, leading the company to continue listing work-from-home options.
“We acknowledge that many prospective employees are increasingly drawn to remote or hybrid work options,” Ackerman said.
Equity accountability
The growth of such job benefits amounts to more than a bid to attract talent; they are seen as a deliberate effort to expand and improve diversity and equity practices.
In a competitive market, Valley-area firms are not just racing to outdo each other in the size of the benefits packages they offer but are also seeking to establish a more equitable corporate culture, matching the state’s broader precedent-setting standards guaranteeing, for example, paternity leave and pay transparency.
This shift reflects a growing recognition among employers of the role of transparency in sustaining at least the image of an inclusive workplace, particularly after 2020 brought diversity, equity and inclusion conversations into the corporate zeitgeist.
Mathison Inc., a Hollywood-based data platform tracking equity in companies’ workforces, has increasingly seen examples of employers incorporating equity and inclusion language into job listings, spurred by pressure from job applicants for how companies are making progress.
“We’re definitely seeing more signs that lead us to believe that people are looking for (transparency) upfront,” Mathison chief executive JD Peterson said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily stopping people from going forward with a job if it’s not there, but if somebody is almost making a checklist … not having it there certainly is a check in the negative column.”
The commitment Peterson mentions goes beyond DEI “lunch and learns” or company landing pages featuring diverse corporate stock photos. Applicants are looking for flexible hours for juggling the schedules of their children, fertility treatment benefits, adoption services coverage and nursing facilities similar to the one offered to Disqo employees.
Reducing the commute
Los Angeles employers are not immune to the labor market squeeze, and major tech companies here continue to fight for employee engagement with both virtual and in-person offerings.
West Hollywood-based Tinder Inc. proves its employee courtship goes far beyond the typical dating-app direct message. Those deciding which matches show up in a swiping queue are offered a ClassPass Inc. subsidy, and to keep these product managers in the office the company covers public transit through WageWorks Inc. and serves free catered lunch and dinner every day. If the free Pilates class doesn’t take the edge off for employees, Tinder also offers a free Headspace Inc. membership for breathwork breaks, where the app guides inhalation and exhalation through visual graphics and audio cues, a relaxing interlude for a developer who can’t locate the syntax error in an app’s code.
Headspace has become a large player in the business-to-business employee benefits scene in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, which brought mental health discussions into the workplace. The Santa Monica-based company started out in 2010 building a meditation guidance application and now contracts with more than 100 companies in the area through its Headspace for Work employee assistance program.
Headspace’s 2021 merger with the on-demand mental health care app Ginger brought telehealth services to its employee-assistance program. According to Connie Chan Wang, senior vice president of marketing at Headspace, the company’s B2B revenue more than doubled that year.
“In today’s environment, many employers are overwhelmed by options and experiencing point-solution fatigue,” Wang said. “They are looking for comprehensive and cost-effective ways to support their employees’ mental health.”
Paying for in-app breathwork may seem frivolous when such content could be accessed for free on Youtube, but Headspace offers more to employers than what employees see on the app. Companies receive “stress outcomes reporting” from Headspace, complete with information about how the content is being used or viewed, where and when people are opening the app and how usage ranks in each company department.
Understanding how, and if, generous benefits are helping retain and attract top talent remains crucial in a hot labor market. August’s job numbers as reported by the Labor Department unexpectedly jumped, indicating that the nation’s employers posted 9.61 million job listings during the month, a 700,000 increase over the previous month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the unemployment rate rose to 3.8% for the month, from 3.5% in July.