A Q&A With One Of This Year’s Most Innovative Companies: AnyPerk
Join Fast Company senior editor Erin Schulte for a live Q&A with AnyPerk CEO Taro Fukuyama. The event will begin at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday, March 11, but you can get your questions in now.
AnyPerk CEO Taro Fukuyama
Photo by: Damien Maloney
Some companies have free on-site haircuts and nap pods. For everyone else, there’s AnyPerk.
AnyPerk was recently named #37 on Fast Company's Most Innovative Companies list 2015 for bringing Facebook-style benefits to the masses.
Join Fast Company senior editor Erin Schulte as she chats with AnyPerk CEO Taro Fukuyama on the role employee perks play in a company's ability to recruit and maintain talented employees.
The event will begin at 1 p.m. ET Wednesday, March 11, but you can get your questions in now using the “make a comment” box below.
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Hi, Fast Company readers. Taro, thanks for being here today to talk with us about the power of perks. First, can you tell us a little bit about how you came up with the idea for AnyPerk?
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Hi Erin and Fast Co readers! First, thanks for inviting me here today.
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To answer your questions, me and my co-founder Sunny Tsang were in Y-Combinator and we thought lots of companies were focused on new hires but not enough on their current employees...
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So, we studied the costs of replacing versus retaining employees, and we decided that focusing on employee happiness was important. There are also some big perks companies in Japan, but none in the U.S. yet. So we came up with the idea for a perks platform. We asked the other YC Companies if they'd pay for it for their employees and they all said they would!
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How big has it gotten in the three years since launch--can you give us an idea of the scope of the company right now?
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Sure. Since we launched we now have over 1,000 customers across the country. They have anywhere between 5 and 16,000 employees. And we've negotiated over 700 perks for employees.
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You collect data what perks employees are actually redeeming--have
there been any surprising learnings from this data about what sort of perks interest people and what they are really using? -
There have been some surprises. We added Coinbase as a perk, which we thought would be cool, but it's been really popular--beyond all expectations. We were also surprised to learn how much people use perks based on season, no matter where they live. And, it's amazing how many people use our AMC perk when big movies come out!
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Can you familiarize our readers with Coinbase, for those who might not
know what that is? -
Yep. Coinbase is a really popular bitcoin wallet. We see a lot of people in tech using it. Basically, it makes it easy to purchase bitcoin and use it for payment.
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One of the things you say you can do with this data is to measure employee happiness. How do you do that?
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Measuring employee happiness is an interesting question. We actually can't measure it directly right now, so we monitor usage and look for anecdotal feedback to make sure we're adding value for employees. We want to do more to directly measure sentiment over time in a way that's helpful but also considers privacy. Stay tuned, we'll be working on it more.
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So you're saying that measuring how much employees actually use perks says something about their happiness?
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We believe so. The research shows that when employees feel more appreciated and acknowledged, they're happier at work. When they use perks that are sponsored by their companies more, it shows they appreciate what their companies are doing for them. It's not all about usage, but certainly usage is a factor.
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In the companies I've worked for, perks—except those that are offered in the office (like a gym or food services)--seem to get overlooked a lot; HR might send out a random email about a 15% discount on Broadway tickets or something, but that's about it. How do you encourage people to actually take advantage of the perks that are on offer?
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Great question. We place a lot of emphasis on making sure employees are aware of what's available to them. We send emails to employees every week about new and trending perks. We're also building a mobile app that will let you see if a perk is available to you nearby. Like, if you're at the movies, it will remind you of your perk.
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We also work directly with our customers and create launch packages that maximize the launch of AnyPerk at their offices.
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So if my company signs up for AnyPerk, what might a "launch package" look like?
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A few things. We have custom-branded posters that companies can put up around their offices. Sometimes we'll send what we call BOOM boxes (we use that word a lot internally when we're excited) to employees with a bunch of AnyPerk swag and directions on how to sign up. And our CS team will often go to our customers' offices and have events to help kick things off.
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Isn't there a danger that perks can take the place of more important things at work? Sometimes an employer will order lunch or something, as if that is supposed to make up for employees' lack of bonuses or raises. They're not stupid! And probably many of them would rather have the money than the perks.
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That's a great question. Salaries, work-life balance and traditional benefits are definitely important, so we would discourage companies from replacing those things with perks. Usually, successful companies use perks to go beyond what's normally offered. A lot of times it's also more cost-effective to use thoughtful perks than giving very small raises because companies can show appreciation beyond just money--they can show how much they care for their employees.
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We're also trying to make it more affordable for companies who can't afford big raises to show their employees they care with perks. And we're working on broadening the platform with other ways of helping employers reward their employees for their achievements, including small spot bonuses, because we know that personal recognition is usually a bigger driver of employee happiness than compensation adjustments.
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What perks do employees seem to be clamoring for? Is it more entertainment and leisure driven, or do employees seem more excited about help with child care, health issues, and convenient meals? What sorts of trends are you seeing?
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There's always a steady interest in obvious ones like gyms, travel, entertainment. But people also ask for strong and unique local perks, which our team tries to hunt down when we can. Things like home brewing classes. We're also trying to get people to think about perks in a broader sense--to include things that maybe aren't glamorous but make life a little easier. Right now, we're getting a ton of tax service requests. It's not that exciting, but really important, so we offer several of those. And we're doing more with donations as a perk, which millennials in particular get really excited about.
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How does that work--donations? Like an employer can give me $X to donate to a charity of my choice?
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Yeah, that's one way, and we have functionality for that that lets employees apply to charities they care about through DonorsChoose or GlobalGiving. Another is a perk we have for a company called Bright Funds. They've partnered with third-party donors who agree to match employee donations for people who work at companies who can't afford corporate matching programs. Normally, companies have to pay a monthly charge to be part of Bright Funds, but our perk lets any employee instantly match up to a $100 donation through Bright Funds without that cost.
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And about the local perks like home brewing classes--those sound like more fun than tax-prep services. But how do you scale something like that?
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I think it's more fun than tax prep, too :)
We have a team that focuses on local perks only. We target several metro areas at a time and make sure we can get perks that matter a lot in that area. It's hard for each HR team to do that themselves, so having one team at AnyPerk makes it easier. As we've grown, we also get a lot of inbound requests from local companies who've heard about AnyPerk. -
You said early on in our conversation that perks companies have taken off in Japan. What sort of differences do you see between the U.S. and the Japanese market for perks?
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In Japan it used to be common for companies to own hotels that their employees could go to for vacation, or even apartment buildings their employees could live in. When the economy declined 10 or so years ago they couldn't afford to own those things themselves, so they started negotiating steep discount perks with hotels and apartments. In the U.S., hotels are important for employee vacations, but we see more interest in lifestyle perks--movies, gyms, childcare, shopping...
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What have been the fundamental requirements you demand of yourself and of your employees to bring to work everyday in order to see your company thrive?
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We have a few things we require of ourselves and employees. One is we're all about helping companies delight their employees, so we always look to delight our customers and keep a positive vibe in our office. It helps us live our brand. We also have a value of "be better than yesterday," which is sort of based on the Japanese concept of kaizen, or continuous improvement. We reinforce both of those things by giving out awards for "Most Delightful Perker" and asking each other how we've "been better than yesterday" on a regular basis.
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I like how the management style reflects your actual product.
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To be honest, for a while I tried to manage more with anger when employees didn't do something really well. It completely backfired. People stopped working as collaboratively, I didn't see it improve performance, and it was just against what we stand for. For the past year, I've been much more enthusiastic in my approach and try to motivate my team with excitement. It's completely changed our culture for the better.
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So what's next for AnyPerk and the future of perks in the U.S.? What big changes can we expect to see over the next 5-10 years?
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We still believe happier employees are an undervalued resource, and we know that perks are only part of the answer. So, we're building out our platform more. We think our mobile app will help increase usage and make employees take advantage of more perks they don't know enough about. But we're also launching a beta product for rewards that will empower companies to spontaneously recognize their employees in cool ways. Plus we have some amazing hires to announce that will help us bring on more and better perks and enter new markets. And really long term, we want to keep working to help our customers understand how happy their employees are and what they can do to improve sentiment. We're always listening to customer feedback and trying to improve, so please tweet at us or leave us a note if you have suggestions!
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Taro, thanks so much for being here today to help us learn about how perks can make for happier workplaces...
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Thank you, Erin! Great chatting with you and hearing from Fast Company readers. Really appreciate the opportunity.
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Thanks to everyone for coming! You can tweet @anyperk or @taro_f with any questions we weren't able to get to. And be sure to check out Fast Company's post on AnyPerk for the Most Innovative Companies list!
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