Hey Millennials, Quit Wasting Time

Katie Williamson May 5, 2016

Time is a precious commodity in our 21st-century lives. But, social media and streaming tv aren’t the only things that steal our time. Here are some ways to be more productive and stop wasting time, provided by older generations of workers.

Ask for help

It’s hard to balance confidence and humility in the workplace. Having a stubborn attitude when it comes to asking for help doesn’t demonstrate confidence, but can demonstrate arrogance or even ignorance. Everyone needs to be taught sometimes so instead of wasting time trying to figure it out on your own, don’t be afraid to ask for help. Your boss or coworker will admire your humility. This openness also creates a dialogue and builds trust in your relationship.

Focus on the positive

One of the biggest wastes of time can be focusing on our mistakes, others’ mistakes, or things we wish we could change. In my own experience, I’ve found dwelling on my mistakes actually causes me to make more errors. I get caught in my own head instead of remembering to double-check my work or again, ask others for help. When we fixate on the things we cannot change, it causes our creativity and innovation to stall, instead of moving forward.

How should we handle mistakes? A good friend of mine told me I need to allow myself to feel it. Once we feel the weight of it, we can forgive ourselves and move on. Be transparent and apologetic with others who may have been affected, learn from the mistake, and next time think hard before repeating the same error.

Choose happiness

It’s easy to spend time being unhappy in our jobs, relationships, or in other aspects of our life. I’m still a young professional, but I realized early-on my first choice for a career was not what truly made me happy. We spend a LOT of time at our nine-to-fives, so it’s important to leave each day feeling fulfilled. After some intense soul-searching, I decided to switch careers and have never looked back. Once I started doing work I enjoyed, I found other areas of my life felt more complete as well. Don’t waste time in a place that doesn’t provide value in your life.

This advice doesn’t just apply to our careers, but also in relationships or even the places we live. If the relationship isn’t healthy for you or the other person, get out of it. If you don’t love where you live, move. Frank Warren, the creator of the PostSecret movement, says “Be wise enough not to be reckless, but brave enough to take great risks.” Don’t make a rash decision because you’re fed up, but make sure you aren’t getting to a place where your unhappiness consumes you.

Don’t let your job define you

Lastly, it’s important to remember there is more to life than your work. Don’t let your whole life go by and regret not doing more because you spent all your waking hours at work, on your way to work, thinking about work, hanging out with coworkers… you get the point. It’s a big world out there and life is too short not to experience it. Plus, new experiences can make us more innovative in our workplaces. Win-win.

What’s some advice you would’ve given your younger self?

The Sweet Sound of Productivity

Katie Williamson May 2, 2016

Music & Productivity are a match made in heaven. One of the best things about PerkSpot is that we have music bouncing off the walls all day long.

However, we know that all music is not created equally. There are the rock jams that get us pumped up, the pop songs that the whole team can sing along, and the mellow acoustics that relax us at the end of the day. Here are a few tips for curating the perfect sounds for your day.

When X + Y = Zzzzzz

Crunching numbers is a part of almost every person’s job description at some point. To keep yourself awake, the best tunes for your intimate time with Excel are pop songs. So whether you’re into old-school Abba or have Bieber fever, pump up the pop jams to get your fingers and your mind flowing.

When you spill your coffee, forget your notebook, and get stuck in traffic…

Mornings can sometimes be the enemy. A personal favorite and a sure-fire bad-mood buster is Reggae. Nothing will help you forget the stresses of the day like being transported to a tropical island.

When Photoshop is your friend…

For the creative minds, we’ve got just the trick. Ambient or electronic music is what the doctor ordered to make you your best creative self.

When you’re tired of hearing the same playlist…

Generally speaking, a good rule-of-thumb is to choose songs with minimal lyrics. Here at PerkSpot, we’ll play jazz, blues, or even music in a different language because the lyrics tend to be less-distracting than your typical mainstream artists.

Music isn’t the only perk that helps improve productivity. Help your employees be more productive with exclusive discounts through PerkSpot!

Crush the Afternoon Slump by Daydreaming, Reading a Novel

Courtney Shipshock November 11, 2015

Your high-energy, high-output morning feels like a distant memory, and the end of your workday seems about a week away. That third cup of coffee is wearing off and you’re debating whether your stomach can handle a fourth. We’ve all been there — the afternoon slump — and we’ll all be there again. Some of us may even be reading this blog post in the midst of a 3 pm productivity tailspin.
If your afternoons are often more of an uphill battle than a victory lap, we’ve got news for you.

The bad:

The afternoon slump is more than just a marketing ploy. It’s not an attempt to sell you alien-shaped-sleep-at-your-desk pillows or productivity-boosting facial spray. The afternoon slump is very real. In fact, it’s a natural part of how the human brain works, and it’s pretty much unavoidable.

The good:

Because we understand the brain mechanism that contributes to the afternoon slump, we also understand how to mediate its effects. Below is a quick summary of the relevant research. Plus, we’ve included a few activities you can do at lunchtime or for a quick break to power past your PM lethargy.

The science:

Researchers at the University of Illinois conducted a study to determine what actually happens in your brain when you suddenly find it difficult to maintain focus after an extended period of work. The study measured groups of participants’ performance on a series of hour-long computer tasks. One group took two short breaks during the tasks, while the other took none. The only participants that exhibited no decline in performance over time were in the group taking the breaks.
The study results confirmed researchers’ hypothesis that the human brain’s ability to maintain constant focus eventually plateaus and then declines. It’s like how you notice a distinct smell when you first walk into a room but cannot smell it after half an hour. The results also confirmed their idea that the brain naturally revs up when one shifts focus.
Taken together, these findings suggest that a 5- to 10-minute break during a project requiring hours of sustained effort can naturally reinvigorate your ability to focus and promote maximum productivity.

Here are three of our favorite break-time activities to give your focus a chance to recharge and, according to science, enhance your brain function:

1. Daydreaming makes you a better problem solver.

Studies show that stepping away from a difficult project to do an unrelated and easy activity makes you more creative when you get back to work.

The evidence: This UC Santa Barbara study found that mind wandering boosts creative problem-solving skills. Subjects performed an Unusual Uses Task (UUT) — a traditional psychological measure where one lists as many uses for certain objects as possible. After the UUT, subjects engaged in either a cognitively demanding or undemanding task. Neuroscientists measured the subjects’ levels of mind wandering during these tasks, and found that those performing the undemanding task exhibited a much greater tendency to let their minds roam. All subjects then performed another UUT. Guess which group of subjects showed dramatic improvement in their second UUT? Yup, the daydreamers.

2. A 10-20 minute power nap between 1-3pm is better than a cup of coffee.

By timing it right, a short nap immediately recharges your brain’s ability to focus. Even better, it all happens without the subsequent drop in energy when the caffeine buzz wears off.

The evidence: A 2006 study on nap duration found that 10 up to 20 minutes is the ideal length of time for a power nap. Nappers who slept for more than 20 and up to 60 minutes exhibited sleep inertia for half an hour after they awoke. What is sleep inertia? It’s the scientific term for the grogginess you feel immediately after rising, and it’s definitively proven to seriously impair cognitive performance. A nap shorter than 20 minutes keeps your body from falling into the deeper levels of sleep known as slow-wave and REM sleep (the types of sleep that produce sleep inertia). Naps of this length are known to replenish attention and strengthen working memory.

3. Reading a novel makes you less stressed and happier.

Engaging with fiction tricks your brain into believing it’s in another world. In so doing, it relaxes you and strengthens your ability to empathize with others’ points of view.

The evidence: Numerous surveys comparing readers and non-readers — such as this one by Quick Reads and the University of Liverpool — find that people who read as little as 30 minutes per week experience less feelings of stress and depression, report 20% greater life satisfaction, and are better equipped to deal with difficult and unexpected situations. Neurological research has actually documented changes in brain connectivity as a result of novel reading and suggests that these changes enhance one’s ability to adopt other perspectives.

Workspace Psychology 101: Boost Your Mood, Motivation, and Productivity

Courtney Shipshock September 1, 2015

Even with the rapid growth of the freelancer economy and the increasing appeal of shared coworking spaces, the majority of us still work out of a single, personal workstation. It’s no secret that our surroundings — both indoor and outdoor — continually impact our psychological well-being and cognitive function. Everything from color design to your distance from the nearest window has a measurable effect on your mood and productivity.

Not everyone can move to a corner office or ask their boss for a custom built ergonomic workstation. So, we rounded up a few scientifically proven ways you can optimize your workspace. That way, you can keep your spirits high and your output in peak form.

Take charge of your decor.

The extent to which different people can personalize their workspace certainly varies. For some, it may be limited to the addition of a few framed photos. While others may have control over their surrounding paint color, adjustable lighting, etc. Regardless, research shows that exercising your maximum degree of influence over your workspace design is beneficial for your motivation and productivity.

Multiple studies led by Craig Knight at the University of Exeter measured workers’ mood and efficiency in varying levels of personalized workspaces in several industries. Self-reported surveys found that the more control people were given over their surroundings, the more engaged they were with their job and the more they identified with their employer. Two additional studies compared workers’ abilities to complete tasks in workspaces categorized as lean (bare and functional), enriched (decorated with plants and photos), and empowered (individuals allowed to design their area). People working in enriched spaces were 17% more productive than those in lean spaces, while their empowered counterparts were a whopping 32% more productive.

There’s no such thing as too much nature.

Indoor plants are perhaps the single best investment you can make in your workspace. Research overwhelmingly shows that office plants help workers recover from demanding activities, decrease stress, and even reduce office air pollution.

Here is a guide to desk plants that thrive in indoor office environments.

Here is a graphic of the best air-cleaning plants, according to NASA.

Curves are more relaxing than right angles.

There is a long history of scientific literature demonstrating the relationship between positive emotional responses and rounded shapes in design and architecture. More recent studies find this relationship extends to furniture and objects in our immediate surroundings.

A recent study led by Sibel Dazkir at Oregon State University looked at participants’ responses to four interior settings with varying degrees of rounded and hard-edged furniture. The two settings with a higher concentration of curves were significantly more inviting to participants and elicited higher amounts of pleasant-unarousing emotions (feeling relaxed, peaceful, and calm).

If possible, opt for a desk and chair that emphasize curves to foster tranquility in your workspace. If not, surround yourself with smaller objects that highlight fluid forms. For ideas, try adding a desk lamp, coffee mug, or potted plant.

Clutter promotes creativity.

Some appreciate the value of a tidy, organized desk. But others feel more at home amidst stacks of loose paper peppered with stray binder clips. Messy workspaces are strongly associated with enhanced creativity and more novel ideas.

This intriguing study led by Kathleen Vohs at the University of Minnesota confirmed the clutter-creativity connection. However, it also found participants in tidier workspaces were more likely to choose healthy snack options. The study finds that people in more orderly workstations are more likely to do what was expected of them. These findings suggest that levels of workspace organization and disorder influence and might even optimize the efficiency of one’s job. For example, a business analyst will likely prefer a more robust organizational structure than the in-house graphic designer.

Color affects cognition.

All colors and light levels have different psychological effects, so choose your colors and desk lighting accordingly. In a 2009 study, Ravi Mehta and Rui Zhu used a series of six computer-based activities to evaluate how red and blue affect cognition. Red facilitates greater attention to detail. Blue encourages exploration and creativity. Green promotes idea generation. Discover what mode of cognition your job requires the most, or what mode of cognition you feel comes least naturally to you. Then, try to work the relevant cognition-boosting color into your workspace.

Seven Tips for Optimizing Your Sleep Strategy

Courtney Shipshock June 10, 2015

It’s 9 pm on Tuesday. You had a great day at work and an even better session at the gym. You made it home in time to cook a healthy dinner instead of picking up from the Thai place around the corner. It’s been too long since you did any pleasure reading and you’re looking forward to cracking open that new novel for a while before getting to bed early.

It’s now 12:43 am. The only light in your bedroom is the pale glow of your laptop. Your contacts are drying up because you haven’t blinked much in the last two hours. You only read four pages, but you did add thirty-odd titles to your Netflix queue and viewed every last one of your best friend’s Facebook photos in reverse chronological order.

You’re not alone.

In June 2014, researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands coined the term “bedtime procrastination” in their study of why people often fail to go to sleep at their intended time despite the absence of external circumstances preventing them from doing so. 84% of the sample reported feeling that they slept too little at least once a week. 30% reported sleeping 6 hours or less on weeknights — far less than the 7 to 9 hours recommended by the National Sleep Foundation. A recent Gallup poll found that Americans currently average 6.8 hours of sleep a night. 40% sleep less than 7 hours a night. In the 1940s, this number was only 11%.

The ongoing trend in 21st-century sleepiness is particularly alarming because sleep is as essential to physical and mental health as oxygen and water. During sleep, your body repairs and restores itself on the cellular level. Sleep is also critical for allowing the brain to embed the things we’ve learned and experienced throughout the day.

The Science of Sleep

It should come as no surprise, then, that excessive sleepiness is linked to slow thought processing and diminished capacity to assess information, resulting in compromised problem-solving skills, impaired judgment, and decreased productivity in the workplace. Longterm lack of sleep is known to increase one’s risk for a myriad of health problems including obesity, diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, mood disorders, weakened immune function, and risk for alcohol abuse. Poor sleep quality is also linked to longterm loss of grey matter, which makes up brain regions responsible for muscle control, sensory perception, memory, and decision making.

If you often find yourself inexplicably awake during the wee hours, psychologist Ron Friedman suggests doing a “nighttime audit” of how you spend your time after work. Simply log everything that happens from the moment you head home until you go to bed. After a few evenings, evaluate your data: why don’t you get to sleep at your desired time? Are you out late for social plans? Taking care of unfinished tasks? Perhaps you just enjoy the personal time and the world feels calmest several hours after the sun goes down.

Once you identify your motivation for staying awake later, see if you can find some activities in your post-work routine that doesn’t further your goals, and reduce time spent on these. If you stay up late to read but record that you spend 1.5 hours per evening texting and video chatting with friends, see if you can limit that time to 45 minutes and/or set a firm deadline in your evening when you will unplug from your communication devices. You may find it helpful to set a reminder when it is time to power down for the night.

Time management isn’t always the main obstacle for the chronically under-slept. Sometimes we simply don’t feel tired even when we know we should. If you don’t struggle to get under the sheets in time for 7-9 hours of shuteye, here are some tips that may help you fall asleep.

Minimize blue light exposure:

All of our screens emit blue light. Exposure to these blue wavelengths suppresses our natural production of melatonin, a hormone that makes us feel sleepy. Studies have found that using amber tinted blue-blocking glasses can counter this effect and create a “physiological darkness” that improves sleep quality and mood.

Use bright light to your advantage:

Avoid bright light in the evening and expose yourself to sunlight when you wake up in the morning. This will help your body maintain its circadian rhythms and balance your sleep cycle.

Avoid eating 3 hours before sleep:

Dr. Jamie Koufman notes that working adults’ eating habits are becoming increasingly worse for sleep health. Many adults don’t eat much throughout the day. They cram in one huge meal in the late evening due to long work hours and further delays caused by shopping and exercise. A healthy adult body takes several hours to empty the stomach. Going to sleep before this process completes often leads to acid reflux, indigestion, and heartburn. Prolonged reflux disease can increase one’s risk for esophageal cancer.

If you must eat before bed, try these:

A growling stomach can make it just as difficult to fall asleep as acid reflux. Rather than starve yourself, check out the National Sleep Foundation’s list of bedtime-appropriate snacks.

Regulate your caffeine intake:

Although you may only feel its effects for a short period right after you drink it, caffeine has a half-life of 5.3 to 5.7 hours. This means that nearly 6 hours after you have a cup of coffee, half of its caffeine is still present in your body. Ingesting 200mg of caffeine — the equivalent of 16oz of coffee — in the early evening is shown to reduce sleep efficiency and disrupt the natural stages of sleep. If you routinely drink coffee near the end of the day, consider switching to tea.

Exercise promotes efficient sleep:

Moderate to vigorous exercise for 150 minutes per week is shown to improve sleep quality up to 65%. Participants in this study also reported feeling less tired during the day than their less active counterparts even when they slept the same amount the night before.

Turn down the thermostat:

The National Sleep Foundation recommends 60-67 degrees for the optimal sleep temperature. Your body decreases its temperature to initiate sleep, so you will fall asleep more easily in a cooler environment.

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Open-Plan Office: A Close-Minded Approach to Workplace Design?

Courtney Shipshock March 31, 2015

Today, roughly 70% of U.S. offices have few to no partitions, according to the International Facility Management Association. The open-plan office is traced back to “office landscaping,” a design technique pioneered by German consultants Quickborner in the 1950s. Conventional wisdom holds that the absence of walls fosters camaraderie among coworkers. It even spurs impromptu conversations which blossom into innovations. This is, of course, in addition to the fact that a greater number of workers fit in an open-plan office, making it more most cost-effective for many businesses.

The Open Office Today

Although popular for decades, the open-plan office has been the subject of recent spectacle. This is, in part, thanks to the high-profile workplace architecture of established tech giants like Google and Facebook, as well as relative newcomers like Airbnb. In today’s open-plan office a sea of organically arranged half-height cubicles is no longer what you’ll find; it now includes arcades, basketball courts, full-size pirate ships, and hydrogen-bomb-proof greenhouses. The recent past has seen a boom in startups looking to emulate established companies who project their success through creative office aesthetics. In fact, one of the side effects is a growing tendency to associate innovation and financial solvency with spaces that blur the distinction between conference room and playground. This tendency, coupled with the firmly entrenched belief in the open-plan office for harnessing employees’ creative potential, has effectively made an open-plan office a prerequisite for success. Although most businesses don’t have the resources to build an indoor tree house, many do have the ability to implement smaller environmental changes that work toward the same goal. For example, a cluster of individual cubicles could be replaced with communal tables to form a shared workspace. The quiet nook where employees pause for a moment of respite may now be occupied by a foosball table. There is arising tide of businesses seeking increasingly creative ways to give their workspaces a playful, egalitarian edge. Which leaves us wondering: does the underlying philosophy of the open-plan office actually hold water?

The Impact on Productivity

The growing consensus among business writers is a surprisingly resounding “no.”. Some authors call for more walls in the workplace, citing numerous studies that suggest open-plan offices hamper productivity and reduce physical health. A survey of available research on the open-plan office reveals a rather substantial number of studies (particularly since the 1980s), with a striking level of consistency across their findings. To point out a few major trends, workers unsatisfied with their office environment blamed noise distractions and lack of privacy. This was especially true for those performing managerial and technical tasks. In particular, irrelevant speech contributes directly to mental workload and slows completion rates. Irrelevant speech conditions also result in higher workload ratings. A two-hour noise simulation correlated open-plan conditions with decreased motivation and impaired memory function. A similar study found that workers are less likely to make ergonomic adjustments in open-plan environments. (9) This is noteworthy when considering that poor posture in the workplace is strongly associated with a myriad of physical health problems including spinal disorders and cardiovascular disease. This snippet of negative data may paint a rather bleak picture for the state of the open-plan office. However, the trends do suggest concrete ways to optimize work environments, like increasing privacy and reducing ambient noise. Furniture specialists Steelcase have done promising work on this front. Two major studies they conducted with global research firm IPSOS found only 11% of global workers satisfied with their work environments, and 95% of North American workers desired additional private space in the office. Inspired by these findings, Steelcase designed five “Quiet Spaces” to easily incorporate into open-plan offices. The five spaces range from 48 to 100 square feet to accommodate both personal and collaborative uses.

Making a Move Towards an Open Office

Emerging design trends clue us into what many more offices may look like in the future. The office should strike an attentive balance between a fluid, open work-space and smaller areas dedicated to privacy and focus. We achieve this at PerkSpot with our quiet lounge (complete with adjustable lighting!). In addition, we boast of three fully enclosed rooms for employees to use however they see fit. Therefore, it may be time for many businesses to consider evaluating their office design. Although, making productive changes won’t require anything as dramatic as enlisting the architectural prowess of Frank Gehry. Increasing employee access to privacy can be as simple as arranging several bookshelves to form a sequestered space. We don’t have to abandon the ideal image of a sprawling, quirky space where every employee is as friendly as they are productive; where a company’s typography themed desks are as cutting edge as the service it provides (or perhaps vice versa?). We just have to remember that an office’s design should address the needs of the employees first. These typically include the ability to work in relative privacy when collaborating coworkers becomes a noisy distraction.

Evidence that Exercise Can Make Your More Productive

Courtney Shipshock March 11, 2015

Emerging research suggests that exercise is just as important for your mind as it is for your body. Numerous studies find that different types of exercise affect the brain in an equally varied number of ways. Both promote cognitive function and preserving brain health. Let’s discuss the science behind this research and dive into a few examples that have positive implications for productivity.

What Science Says…

Studies show exercise can increase the presence of BDNF (brain-derived neurotrophic factor) in the brain. BDNF is a critical protein for the brain’s ability to heal, adapt, learn, and form memories. Until a study led by cell biologist Bruce Spiegelman, researchers remained uncertain about how exercise actually induces elevated levels of BDNF. Spiegelman and his team discovered that irisin, a hormone secreted by muscle cells after endurance exercise, is essentially a “chemical messenger” that promotes expression of BDNF, as well as genes linked to learning skills and memory formation. The discovery of irisin has enabled the scientific community to research the effect of exercise on cognitive function with more precision than ever.

A Georgia Institute of Technology study found that intense resistance training for periods as short as 20 minutes can boost episodic memory (memory of specific past events) by 10%. A study by David Jacobs linked aerobic fitness during one’s 20’s and increased memory performance later on in life. Two studies by the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois (one on children and one on adults age 60+) measured increased white matter integrity in those with higher levels of aerobic fitness. White matter has been deemed a “superhighway” connecting the brain’s regions; more compact white matter is associated with increased attention and faster cognitive function.

Exercise for Your Mind

While we still have years worth of research before we fully understand how exercise impacts the brain, it is clear that many forms of voluntary physical activity enhance mental performance and protect against neurological disease. The latter is certainly an important trend for the 21st-century American worker. We see this as the average retirement age has slowly but steadily increased for the last two decades.

On a related note, exercising for 150 minutes per week improves sleep quality up to 65%. This is especially significant when considering that poor sleep quality may lead to long-term loss of grey matter. This important substance makes up brain regions responsible for muscle control, sensory perception, memory, and decision making. Furthermore, scientists attribute the lack of proper sleep with mental fatigue in the workplace than one’s actual workload. By boosting cognitive function and reducing mental fatigue, exercise can effectively lighten your workload without actually reducing your output!

We here at PerkSpot know that starting a new exercise routine can be a challenge. That’s why we offer PerkSpot Health and Wellness. Your employees save big on local gym memberships and nutrition programs, and your business benefits from healthier, happier workers!

How to Invest in Happiness Without Blowing Your Budget

Courtney Shipshock February 23, 2015

It is a corporate truism that happiness begets productivity. There is a slew of data to support this idea, such as the extensive work of Teresa Amabile or this Gallup poll by James Harter. More recently, perks have emerged as the choice tactic for companies seeking to boost employee happiness. So much so that companies, from entrepreneurial startups to established enterprises, hire perk managers to engineer creative perk programs.

We here at PerkSpot know that not all perks are created equal.

We are also aware that not every business can afford a $10,000 per employee desk allowance or a month-long office adventure to Thailand. We’ve dug deeper into the wealth of research on the happiness-productivity model and hope that our findings will suggest some cost-effective ways to invest in workplace happiness that will ensure your highest ROI. A number of recent studies point out that broader psychological factors have the strongest implications for increased workplace productivity. Professor John Zelenski demonstrated that “positive affect” is more strongly tied to high productivity than either “job satisfaction” or “quality of work life.”. In another study, Thomas Wright found that increased job satisfaction yields increased productivity only when employees already have a high level of psychological well-being (PWB). Employees who score low on “life satisfaction” stay home an average of 15 more days a year, states Gallup Healthways. Another Gallup study showed that retail stores scoring high on employee life satisfaction generated $32 million more in earnings than less happy competitors. The data suggests managers should focus on perks that promote more general psychological factors like life satisfaction and psychological well-being. An office ping-pong table may seem sure to increase employee happiness. However, MetLife’s Benefits Trends Study suggests that offering a financial education program may be more effective. According to the study, 54% of employees worry about their financial security; while 51% of employers strongly agree employees are less productive when they worry about personal financial problems. 57% of employers agree that offering financial education to employees has a positive impact on productivity.

Don’t underestimate the benefit of perks that cost you nothing.

A recent study by Nicholas Bloom and John Roberts focused on China’s largest travel agency. They found employees permitted to work from home were 13% more productive and 50% less likely to leave their jobs. Considering the cost of replacing an employee can range from 90% to 200% of their annual salary, this is significant. In fact, FastCo.Design says you may see similar upticks in productivity from changing your office environment. They suggest converting a portion of your office into spaces akin to employees’ homes (think sofas, café tables, etc.). Increased time with family and friends can strongly reinforce the high levels of psychological well-being that promote job satisfaction. It’s no surprise, then, that the Society of Human Resource Management reports that 30% of employers offer discounted tickets to movies, theme parks, museums, and more in order to encourage more family outings. We hope that our research sheds some light on the burgeoning world of workplace perks. Perks geared toward enhancing employees’ lives outside the office can result in the largest jump in job satisfaction and productivity. The above examples suggest some cost-effective starting points for anybody looking to build a perks program into their office culture. Want more insights like these? Subscribe using the form to the right!