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At Zestful, it’s important that we stay plugged into the latest trends in perks and benefits—especially at top companies like corporate travel tool lola.com and the employee perks they put into place.
We chatted with Lola’s Director of People Operations, Emma Brudner, to learn more about the types of perks, benefits, and other culture-building offerings the top tech startup gives to their employees.
Kate Marshall, Zestful: Which of your perks or benefits, in your opinion, is the most unique?
Emma Brudner, lola.com: Every single employee gets equity - so everyone has a vested interest in making Lola as successful as it could be.
KM: Which of your perks or benefits is the most loved by your employees?
EB: We always say our best perk is our people, and judging from our ENPS comments, it's true. People really like who they work with here!
KM: On the same note, what do your PTO and remote work policies look like?
EB: We know that people do their best work when all the parts of their lives are in balance.
With that in mind, we don’t have a formal work from home policy; instead, we trust people to talk with their managers and figure out what works for them and the rest of their team.
As for time off, we offer an unlimited vacation policy for our exempt team members. When you work as hard as we do, you need ample time to recharge. As a travel company, we (of course) attract folks who are passionate about travel—and it’s fun to see all the places people bring their purple shirts!
KM: What are some ways you prioritize health and wellness in the workplace?
EB: We call ourselves “Wicked Loving”, and that means we want everyone to feel taken care of and to take care of each other—body, mind, and soul. That’s why it’s a priority that our healthcare is competitive. (We pay for 100% of the premium, and the first 50% of the deductible.)
We also offer monthly guided meditation, an assortment of snacks—healthy and not-so-healthy 😉 and something we call “hobby talks” where people share what they’re passionate about outside of work.
Besides that, we work hard to create an environment where a lot of different types of people feel that they can not only be successful but that they belong. Part of wellness is feeling connected and feeling like you can be your authentic self both at work and outside of it.
KM: We often hear from employees and people ops professionals alike that professional development and career growth are a top priority. How do you nurture growth and continued learning at lola.com?
EB: Our founder and CTO, Paul English, always says that he wants Lola to be the place that our employees can look back on and feel they learned the most they possibly could.
We do that in some formal ways. For example, our “humble learners” book club, Lola sponsored professional development events, the business metrics review at our monthly all-hands meeting, etc.—but I would argue most of the learning that happens at Lola is informal and driven by our people.
If you come to our office for a day you’ll see countless, one-off conversations where people are collaborating, asking for help, and giving feedback. It’s why we’re very deliberate about hiring team-oriented, lifelong learners, so that we create an organic culture of learning and helping others learn. But don’t take our word for it, come pay us a visit and see for yourself!
Emma Brudner is the Director of People Operations at lola.com. She's fascinated with people and is always thinking about how to make work more authentic. Say hi on Twitter @emmajs24 or connect with her on LinkedIn.
Lola is a super simple management tool that can help companies book, report, and save on business travel. Lola.com has been awarded Best Place to Work by Boston Business Journal and was selected as a Best Tech Startup finalist for the 2019 Timmy Awards. Learn more at lola.com.
