Dry cleaning and dog walking
Working so hard you don't have time to do anything else? It may be time to try a concierge.
In the drive to win and retain top personnel, some UK financial services groups are bringing the services of 'lifestyle management' companies for their top employees. They do everything from the dry-cleaning drop-off and pick-up finding and waiting on repair men and parcels, or organising holidays.
Ben Maxmin, an account director at The Power of Ten, says the company works with a number of bank and insurance companies in Scotland and the benefits for imposing such schemes for senior people can be considerable - every time a concierge steps in to organise something, 90 minutes of an employee's time (when he/she could have been hard at work instead), are saved.
Not everyone is convinced, however. One Scottish-based HR director at an asset manager recently dumped the concierge service on the grounds that it's not up to employers to decide how employees manage their lives. She told us: "We pride ourselves on a completely flat benefit structure. My chief executive has exactly the same benefits package on offer as the most junior employee. If our senior people want to use a concierge service they can join as an individual member and pay for it themselves."
