I did some self reflection and realized that the concept of managerial perks really bothers me.
To be clear, I’m not talking about a bigger office or a secretary. I would consider those necessary to one in that position. (private space for conferences and an assistant for time/schedule management.)
It’s stuff like free food, a company car, that really pisses me off.
But it wouldn’t bother me if the manager got even more salary and paid for the car and food themselves. I can’t figure out why that would make a difference to me.
And because different people see different things as perks, as desirable, different people will be bothered (or feel rewarded) by different so-called-benefits. I wouldn’t know what to do with the kind of large cars which are usually given as company cars (mine’s the smallest Citroën); my last place of employment offered access to private healthcare insurance (on top of the public UHC system but we had to pay for it), which I rejected, and the guy from HR is still trying to comprehend how can someone not want it. He evidently considers it a fabulous perk.
I haven’t known anyone who has gotten a company car since the tax law changed - maybe 20 years ago. Not in corporate America - in Small Business America its pretty normal for the owner of an LLC or S Corp to give himself a company car - but that’s a different thing.
The biggest perk I’ve ever gotten as a manager is vendor perks - lunches and dinner out. My husband has gotten to fly first class (but he had to spend weeks at a time in China) instead of cattle car as an executive, and had Facebook take him out to dinner at The French Laundry.
IMHO, it’s that the perks aren’t as transparent, open and straightforward that give it an irritating vibe. If management was paid more and simply bought the perks with the money, that would seem less underhanded or sleazy.
I bet the reason it bothers you is that we don’t convert all perks into dollar figures, but we consider each class of perk as a separate thing.
So, we already know the big shots get paid more than us. But the pay is mostly hidden (it’s not like we all line up and get handed big stacks of money every week in public) so it’s easier to ignore. And, regardless of the dollar value difference, it sort of counts as one “thing” in our minds. But if they get free lunch, and a car, too! That’s three things they’re getting more. Three times as unfair!
As for why they do it this way: Free food as a perk is arguably a tax workaround, and also (sometimes) a work efficiency gain.
Food provided to employees at work isn’t counted as employee compensation, so the employees don’t have to pay taxes on it. Paying people more and having them buy their own food is inefficient because the government gets a slice. And the more the employee is paid the higher the tax that has to be paid, so there’s at least a little economic logic for why highly paid employees get this perk and lower-paid ones don’t.
Think about the tech companies that provide food for their employees. Those employees are basically all highly paid.
The other thing is that if you have someone that you’re paying hundreds of thousands of dollars to (or more) a year, their time is quite valuable. If you can have lunch delivered and save them 20 minutes of going to get it, that’s 20 minutes they’re going to spend working for you. It doesn’t take much before the cost of lunch is way less than the value of that 20 minutes.
a couple of employers ago, the upper management had company-provided vehicles, but they were included as taxable income which also meant they were prohibited from expensing mileage even if they used a personally-owned car for business related travel.
where I am now, basically below C-level the only car related management “perk” is discounted lease deals. And if you’re not management, you need to fill out an evaluation form if you sign out a test car overnight.
My car is always disorganized and several years out of date, at best. Filthy and decrepit, at worst. I would hope that any job where I was expected to give customers or clients a ride would provide me with a vehicle or, if it were infrequent enough, let me rent a car for those times. Or at least pay me significantly more with the expectation that my job depended on keeping a clean late model car.
If it has absolutely zero to do with their job duties, you can justify it as either “that’s what he gets instead of an even higher salary” or “management finds him so valuable that they never want ‘car trouble’ to be an excuse for absence or tardiness ever again”.
I’ve audited hundred of companies, and a sure sign of a piece-of-shit outfit was designated parking spaces. If there were a bunch of special parking spaces for the PRESIDENT and DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS and stuff, the company was a mess.
The companies that did well were the ones where if you wanted to be an executive, by Christ you showed up early enough to get a good parking spot.
That said, I have to agree some perks do make sense. A company car might be a stupid extravagance… but if the sales manager in question is putting in 50,000 miles a year, it might actually be cheaper to buy her a car than have her charge milage. That’'s just math.
I remember when I was a manager at a big insurance company, my big “perk” was having a printer at my desk. Didn’t stop me from getting yelled at for taking paper from the wrong team’s supply area.
By far the best perk of that job was the extra several weeks of severance I got when I was laid off.
I’m in IT in the UK and not a manager. In this type of position once you reach a certain level a company car or a car allowance is standard practice. And even though I have the car allowance I can still charge mileage for business trips. There must be some tax advantage for the company to do it this way instead of just paying higher salaries. I’ve worked with people who had car allowances but didn’t even drive.
I’ve never heard of “free food” as a management perk. I’ve worked at companies (mostly in tech) where they had free snacks in the break room / kitchen. But those were available for everyone.
In fact, a sure sign of a shitty workplace is one that doesn’t have free coffee. Most places should be able to afford those crappy Flavia pods.
As a manager I’m also allowed a certain leeway to expense lunches and drinks for “team building”, so long as I don’t go crazy with it. But the expectation is I’m taking out either some clients or my team.
Many years ago, it was my job responsibility to administer the executive perk program. It was all very stratified based on title level; level A got cars from list A, level B got cars from list B, etc. These people were being paid goo-gobs of money, but were also given things that us mere mortals were expected to pay for out of our salary. It was comical to me when they started pushing for more and more and more - well, if you are giving me a car you don’t expect ME to pay for the gas? Or the maintenance? Or the parking? Well, no, I suppose we don’t, yes yes, we’ll take care of that too (maybe we need to supply you with shoes too? Since you have to walk to the car?)
And that was only the car part of the package.
In my current world of higher education, it seems that the President/Chancellor is paid goo-gobs, but is also given the use of a house. So there is that they don’t have to pay for out of their goo-gobs.
I’m not bothered by it, per se - there is a certain amount underlying motivation to others in that “this too could be yours, if only you worked hard enough!” But I am somewhat bothered by the politics of it all. These executives would make sure they got all of the best perks, and were very attuned to what anyone else in the organization might get that they didn’t, but when it came to raise time? Well, let’s argue for days on end to prevent Sheila in the file room from getting an extra $0.15 an hour.
I’ve felt the same way too, but I try to think of it like this, “Well it’s their good luck.”
Suppose I say “I am going to buy a lottery ticket” but don’t and my coworker says, “Thanks for reminding me.” and he buys one and wins.
It’s his good luck, the fact I reminded him and failed to buy one for myself is irrelevant.
Also them getting something ISN’T taking anything from me.
The free car your boss is getting is his/her good luck. And if s/he wasn’t getting it, you probably wouldn’t get it, so you’re not out anything anyway.
My social theory is that nobody really cares that much about whether they have something or not, as long as it’s more than other people so they can get a feeling of superiority.
The inferior feeling you get seeing these perks is the flip side of the coin–these perks are used exactly because they make these managers feel like they are superior to everyone else. This is a powerful incentive for some types of people.
