How Generous Benefits Can Make a Difference When Salaries are Maxed Out

BY Keren Dinkin | April 02, 2024

For specialty retailer Backcountry, rewarding its workers goes hand-in-hand with enhancing the company’s adventure-driven culture. So benefits come in the form of adventure leaves, big employee discounts on outdoor recreation gear, healthy food, and even a dog-friendly workplace.

In a fireside chat at From Day One’s Salt Lake City event, Benjamin Gross, chief people officer and general counsel at Backcountry, spoke with Mekenna Malan, editor at Utah Business on how generous benefits can make a difference when employee salaries are already maxed out. 

One thing that’s universal across industries is tremendous wage growth. At Backcountry, wages have increased by 30% since 2019, says Gross. They pay somewhere in the median for privately held e-commerce companies, he says.  

In terms of talent, what’s really important to them is coming up with a way to make employees want to not only join, but also stay with them. And so, they have a culmination of creative benefits specific to their workforce. 

One of the unique ways they make their employees feel happy is very simple: they allow people to bring their dogs. There are house rules, but ultimately, Gross notes that they have a big group of dogs in the office on any given day, sometimes even his own are included. 

The bring a dog policy aligns with Backcountry’s outdoors-oriented culture. For other companies, this could translate into something else that allows for an element of relaxation and fun in the workplace.

Gross also shares how the shift to hybrid work caused a bit of distress for some, but they found a happy medium to make back-to-office work more bearable. “We have a lot of things we built into the schedule to be more flexible. We allow anyone to leave for a month, anywhere they want to go, as long as they’re available in mountain time hours, and do their work. We’re good with that, ” he said.

Mekenna Malan, right, interviewed Ben Gross of Backcountry on the benefits that keep their workers happy and their culture strong

They also took a vote on having half-day Fridays versus every other Friday off work in exchange for longer work days, Monday through Thursday. They came to a 90% vote in favor of every other Friday off and have been doing that for three years now. 

Another thing that Backcountry focused on was a robust employee assistance program (EAP), especially amid the influx of mental health distress and FMLA leaves being filed. “For the first time ever in summer of 2021, we were getting more mental health-related FMLA requests than those for physical health issues.”

In addition to finding a robust EAP system, Backcountry also requires all of its managers to be trained to identify mental health distress in their employees. The company’s EAP also has counselor benefits for employees and their families, too.

Backcountry has also taken a gamified approach to benefits, with a “gold points” system. Every manager and director gets a new allotment of gold points to hand out each month. These could be for a work achievement or personal achievement, and they use a bespoke platform where everybody can build their points and everyone can see the leaderboard. The points can be redeemed for ski passes, gift cards, marathons, and the like.

Gross says that a big part of it is really understanding your target market and your workforce. In the case of Backcountry, the dogs-allowed policy stemmed from an understanding that a lot of their customers have dogs, and their employees (who share the same backgrounds as customers) also have dogs. “So part of it is understanding your workforce and trying to tailor it the best you can,” said Gross. 

One way to check the temperature for this is through engagement surveys and climate surveys. At Backcountry, this is done four times a year. During their earlier days, it used to happen every other week—to really try and zero in on culture and what people want, he says. 

Culture is really important, Gross highlights. From the benefits to the general sense of belonging, these are all unquantifiable things that employees value, sometimes more than a higher paycheck. In the case of “boomerang employees,” Gross shares how some people leave Backcountry for higher salaries, only to return to their old jobs because the culture was unmatched.

Keren's love for words saw her transition from a corporate employee into a freelance writer during the pandemic. When she is not at her desk whipping up compelling narratives and sipping on endless cups of coffee, you can find her curled up with a book, playing with her dog, or pottering about in the garden.

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