Pushing the boundaries of fringe benefits, companies including Airbnb, Evernote and Think Parallax are among the new wave.
Delta Cockins just got back from an all-expenses-paid trip to Paris, care of her employer, Betabrand. Her company covered the cost of a “wonderful” hotel next to the Louvre and an “amazing direct flight,” says Ms. Cockins, an inventory planner at the San Francisco-based online retailer. Her co-workers pitched in $500 for spending money, and Ms. Cockins used the cash to buy her first pair of Christian Louboutin heels. “I'm always going to say Betabrand owns one of those shoes,” she says.
Ms. Cockins's journey was part of Betabrand's FlyAway program. Every six to eight weeks a lucky someone from the office gets sent abroad, and the company covers airfare and lodging. To qualify for the deal, the employee can't have traveled outside the country—ever. Ms. Cockins, 41, never had a passport. Betabrand also expects the globe-trotting employee to stay connected through social media and deliver a companywide trip report afterward.
A handful of companies have pushed the boundaries of fringe benefits by offering subsidized travel on top of the more familiar policies promising paid time off, as well as the avant-garde employers offering unlimited vacation time. Airbnb, Evernote, Afar Media, G Adventures, and Think Parallax are among the new wave of employers putting up from $1,000 to $4,000 for some or all of their workers to get out of town. Dreamy, right?
Betabrand Chief Executive Officer Chris Lindland came up with the idea when, at a happy hour last fall, he learned how few of his employees had traveled abroad. He immediately acquired a miles-rewards credit card and used the points collected doing business as usual to fund the first trip in January. He thinks his relatively modest investment—only a few of his 60 employees qualify for free trips—has paid off: “It adds to the workplace life here of celebration and shared adventure,” Mr. Lindland says. “I know that sounds a bit inflated, but it's really true. It's not that we're sending people off on these luxurious vacations. We're sending them off on four- to five-day quests.”
At most workplaces experimenting with subsidized leisure travel, all employees are eligible to nab a free or an almost-free trip. But reimbursement usually comes with stipulations. Travel is often limited to certain dates when it makes most sense for people to miss work, and sometimes employees have to dip into vacation days to cover the time off. The employer-sponsored trips also aren't a total vacation from work. Afar, a San Francisco-based travel magazine, offers a yearly $2,000 stipend for employees to travel to any international destination they haven't visited before. Participants are expected to post their experiences on Afar's website.
Think Parallax, a creative agency in California, has turned its $1,500 travel program into a game. Participants have to pick somewhere new to visit and keep it a secret from their co-workers. The travelers leave a trail of digital clues on Instagram and Facebook for people to guess their whereabouts. Once they return, they describe their destination in a presentation.
From an employer perspective, the perk falls under professional development. Yes, it's about retention and a way to incentivize workers to take time off. Americans don't take vacations. Nearly half of U.S. workers didn't take a day off in 2014, according to a Skift survey, and federal statistics show that a quarter of the civilian workforce receive no paid vacation time. “This is a way of reemphasizing how important work-life balance is,” says Guusje Bendeler, the creative director at Think Parallax, who hails from the Netherlands, land of work-life balance. Employers also expect a return on their investment: “We see it more as these experience trips that will make them more well-rounded human beings,” adds Ms. Bendeler. “That in return, that will produce better work or better people.”
The general thinking goes like this: Worldly workers have better ideas and broader perspectives, which lead to better creative thinking. Studies have linked creativity with travel, particularly the type of immersive experiences these programs mandate. “The key, critical process is multicultural engagement, immersion, and adaptation,” Adam Galinsky, a professor at Columbia Business School, told the Atlantic. “Someone who lives abroad and doesn't engage with the local culture will likely get less of a creative boost than someone who travels abroad and really engages in the local environment.”
Many of these companies require employees to engage. Loafing on a beach isn't an option. “We all love beach vacations,” says Afar Media Chief Product Officer Joe Diaz. “If that's all we do on our trips, we come back and feel like there's something we left on the table.”
At companies with travel baked into the mission, the benefits of sending people overseas have an even more tangible effect on business. Mr. Diaz credits his program for bringing authenticity to the content of Afar magazine, which has won a James Beard award and other accolades. At G Adventures, a travel company, employees can go on one of the company's tours free of charge, giving them a deeper understanding of the product.
To hear employees describe their trips, these sound like dream vacations. Aislyn Greene, an associate editor at Afar, used her $2,000 stipend for 10 days in Bali that included “epic food experiences,” a home stay, and luxurious hotels. Maddie Lochte, a graphic designer, spent 10 days in New Zealand on Think Parallax's dime. She climbed mountains and repelled into caves. Ms. Cockins did what she calls a girl's version of Paris. Instead of spending her days scrambling in and out of museums, she made perfume, shopped, and indulged in the city's culinary offerings.
Employees, as expected, come back convinced the travel subsidy was worth it. The art and architecture in Auckland gave Ms. Lochte ideas for projects, she says, and she also returned touting more nebulous benefits, such as feeling refreshed as a designer. Others describe changed perspectives on the world that in turn have influenced their work. After her trip to Bali, for example, Ms. Greene says she looks at stories she edits in a different way.
That these trips come with strings attached didn't bother any of the employees who spoke with Bloomberg. Even those who had to use up their paid vacation time didn't see it as an imposition, and free money tends to push the vacations in a more adventurous direction. “The world is completely available to you with this,” Ms. Greene says, adding that she wouldn't have gone to Bali using her own money. This year, she's thinking of using her allotted stipend on a foodie bike tour through Basque Country. “Knowing that every year you get to take one big trip, that's pretty awesome,” she says. Yes, yes it is.
(Correction: Think Parallax's Guusje Bendeler is from the Netherlands but lives in California. An earlier version of this story misidentified Bendeler's place of residence. Think Parallax is located in Encinitas. An earlier version of this story said the company was located in the Bay Area.)
