FEATURED ARTICLE

Lori B. Hitchcock, president of Hitchcock Staffing in Portsmouth. Photo:  Amy Root-Donle

How many miles per gallon does your company’s benefits plan get? For Tony Formichelli, it’s 36 in the city, 31 on the highway. But that’s for an SUV, a Ford Escape Hybrid. In the constant push to recruit and retain employees, The Timberland Company a year ago rolled out another benefit: a $3,000 incentive for its workers to buy hybrid fuel-efficient vehicles. Foremost, the offer is in keeping with the Stratham-based company’s commitment to reduce carbon dioxide emissions and limit its contribution to global warming. Yet, it is just another example of the cool perks that are out there.

For Formichelli, it is a set of wheels. Or rather, for his wife, who conducted the research, kicked the tires and test drove various hybrid cars last summer after learning of the incentive from the company’s internal “eco-fair.” “I certainly don’t have any complaints,” said Formichelli, an 18-year veteran of customer services, whose Escape one might notice at his kids’ Little League ball park in Portsmouth.

Creative offerings

Benefits packages have long been the upside to jobs that may not pay what employees would prefer. They have come a long way since the railroad industry created the first private-sector pension plans in the late 1880s. Retirement and health plans remain top priorities, of course, but workplaces are getting creative with benefits that include tuition reimbursement, on-site training, job sharing, relocation assistance, on-site childcare, on-site massages, and legal and financial counseling.

These days, even after those heady boom years in the 1990s, benefits help a company land the employee or employees whose services are in demand. And these days, it’s not just the 20-something computer whizzes who earn twice what their parents make when they graduate college. Software and technology sectors may still be strong, but health care has emerged as a giant.

Timberland offers a $3,000 incentive for its workers to buy hybrid vehicles. Courtesy Photo

“Nurses can just about write their own ticket,” said Lori B. Hitchcock, president of Hitchcock Staffing in Portsmouth. “The market is definitely tightening up. That’s the one area where you see sign-on bonuses.” She noted many in New Hampshire’s soaring software industry were getting $5,000 and $10,000 signing bonuses. Some of these bonuses still occur, especially when a particular skill is necessary, but it is nowhere near the breakneck pace of the 1990s, said Hitchcock, whose professional affiliations and memberships include the Ecoast Technology Roundtable, the Business Development Committee for the Greater Portsmouth Chamber of Commerce, and the Seacoast Human Resources Association.

Hitchcock, who sits on the board of trustees at the New Hampshire Community Technical College system, recalled being at a graduation earlier this year in Berlin – one of the network’s 12 locations. Conferring with the head nursing instructor, she learned that each graduate had two or three offers on their desk.

As salary surveys show a direct correlation between what people earn and their education levels, higher education and worker retraining are always popular, Hitchcock said. It is seen as free money, even though companies get the benefit of a worker’s higher skillset.

With increases in health insurance costs, Hitchcock said companies and employees are turning to other benefits, such as health club memberships and more flexible schedules. She hears of companies that offer “choose your own hours” to employees, where eligible personnel in a 37-hour week can chose to work, for example, three 12-hour days. Other quality-oflife issues are well placed on the negotiating table for employees.

“People are preferring more vacation time as opposed to an increase in salary,” she said.

Some say it is a reaction to the fast-paced, stressful office environment in modern-day America, as well as workers reassessing what is most important to them: family. A recent survey cited by Benefitnews.com found 44 percent of working fathers were willing to take a pay cut to spend more time with their children. The same online industry newsletter put the ratio at 52 percent for working mothers.

Tuition, training

Recent years have also seen more of a focus on tuition reimbursement, what has become standard in many companies. Hitchcock said she has also seen an increase in employer-based training, which gradually picked up after the 2000-01 economic doldrums.

Other major companies in the Seacoast, such as Liberty Mutual, explicitly recognize that talented people warrant competitive pay and comprehensive benefits. Among its benefits, Liberty Mutual offers a performance-based bonus program and paid time off for employees to pursue a personal or private interest. Liberty’s tuition plan reimburses 100 percent of the cost of undergraduate and graduate courses, up to a maximum of $6,000 a year. It is contingent on being an employee for at least a year and the employee receiving a C+ or better for an undergraduate course and a B or better for a graduate course, according to the company’s online benefits outline.

Some employee benefits you won’t find in the employee handbook. Hitchcock noted a local software company recently rewarded its employees with a cruise to the Isles of Shoals.

State’s benefits

When Fred Kocher talks about the benefits of doing business in New Hampshire, the president of the New Hampshire High Technology Council often talks about state support for entrepreneurs and the state’s high per capita ranking of high-tech workers. High on his list of attributes is the geographic location, being close to Boston.

Robert Baines, executive-in-residence at Southern New Hampshire University based in Manchester, said the region’s environmental, cultural, and economic offerings are seen as tangential benefits.

Borrowing good ideas

While economic forces exert pressures on what companies offer, and what they can offer, Hitchcock notes that good ideas and good benefits can certainly be duplicated from workplace to workplace.

At The Timberland Company, president and chief executive officer Jeffrey Swartz says conducting business in the most socially responsible manner can drive change in an industry. He said as much in May, when Business Ethics Magazine named his company to its “100 Best Corporate Citizen” list for the seventh consecutive year based on business practices that included human rights, community and environmental endeavors.

In 2006, for the ninth consecutive year, Timberland ranked No. 41 on FORTUNE magazine’s list of the 100 best companies to work for. The company also has a “Path of Service” program in which employees can take 40 hours of paid leave each year for a particular community service.

Formichelli, the long-time Timberland worker, said he and his family have enjoyed taking advantage of the community service component. Not to mention, he said, the great clothing, footwear and gear discounts during the holiday season. And then, of course, the flex time, such as working one’s schedule so that he can get off at 3 p.m. on Fridays and on days when he has to work as a Little League coach.

Yes, he said as an aside, “It’s a great place to work.”