Luring new employees continues to be struggle, and some Los Angeles businesses are dreaming up new perks much like tech companies did a dozen years ago.

Take Tinder Inc., which offers employee courtship that goes far beyond the typical dating-app direct message. Free catered lunches and dinners are back on the menu, and the West Hollywood dating app has begun offering its employees a public transit benefit account through WageWorks Inc. for commuting into the office. 

It already offered Pilates classes, but if that’s not enough to take the edge off, Tinder also offers a free Headspace Inc. membership for breathwork breaks, where the app guides inhalation and exhalation through visual graphics and audio cues, a relaxing interlude for a developer who can’t locate the syntax error in an app’s code.

Tinder is not alone in persuading its team to endure Los Angeles traffic and come back into the office. Santa Monica-based human resources platform Cornerstone OnDemand Inc. has in-office yoga classes and relaxation rooms with massages and acupuncture therapy. 

Long Beach-based Zwift Inc., which builds virtual cycling training programs, installed a bike-repair room for its employees commuting to work via two wheels. 

For benefit contracting companies, virtual offerings have also become trendy for the new hybrid workplace norm.

Headspace has become a large player in the business-to-business employee benefits scene after the Covid-19 pandemic brought mental health discussions into the workplace. The Santa Monica-based company started out in 2010 building a meditation guidance application and now contracts with more than 100 companies in the area through its Headspace for Work employee assistance program. 

Headspace’s 2021 merger with the on-demand mental health care app Ginger brought telehealth services to its employee assistance program. According to Connie Chan Wang, senior vice president of marketing at Headspace, the company’s B2B revenue more than doubled that year.

“In today’s environment, many employers are overwhelmed by options and experiencing point-solution fatigue,” Wang said. “They are looking for comprehensive and cost-effective ways to support their employees’ mental health.”

Paying for in-app breathwork may seem frivolous when such content could be accessed for free on YouTube, but Headspace offers more to employers than what employees see on the app. Companies receive “stress outcomes reporting” from Headspace, complete with information about the content being used or viewed, where people are opening the app, and how usage ranks in each company department. 

Employers also understand that many Angelenos place importance on the emotional well-being of their pets. A number of companies offer pet insurance that covers vet visits and treatment for behavioral issues, such as aggression or separation anxiety.

Airvet Inc. began offering telehealth veterinary benefits to employees of Brentwood-based real estate investment trust Redford Industrial Realty Inc. this year. Joining in this trend, Glendale-based health care software-service company Reveeler Inc. began including pet insurance as a voluntary supplement to its benefits portfolio. 

According to Jay Ackerman, Reveeler’s chief executive, the company has hired 120 people this year and hopes to fill 30 more positions by the end of the year. His company doubled the size of its Glendale office in July.

Ackerman said that top talent still asks for remote work, leading the company to continue listing work-from-home options.

“We acknowledge that many prospective employees are increasingly drawn to remote or hybrid work options,” Ackerman said.

Equity accountability

The growth of such job benefits amounts to more than a bid to attract talent; they are seen as a deliberate effort to expand and improve diversity and equity practices. 

In a competitive market, Los Angeles firms are not just racing to outdo each other in the size of the benefits packages they offer, but are also carving a path toward a more equitable corporate culture, matching the state’s broader precedent-setting standards guaranteeing, for example, paternity leave and pay transparency.

This shift reflects a growing recognition among employers of the role of transparency in sustaining at least the image of an inclusive workplace, particularly after 2020 brought diversity, equity and inclusion conversations into the corporate zeitgeist. 

Mathison Inc., a Hollywood-based data platform that tracks equity in companies’ workforces, has seen employers shift equity and inclusion language into job listings with pressure from job seekers for how companies are making progress.

“We’re definitely seeing more signs that lead us to believe that people are looking for (transparency) upfront,” Mathison chief executive JD Peterson said. “I don’t know that it’s necessarily stopping people from going forward with a job if it’s not there, but if somebody is almost making a checklist … not having it there certainly is a check in the negative column.”

The commitment Peterson mentions goes beyond DEI “lunch and learns” or company landing pages featuring diverse corporate stock photos. Applicants are looking for flexible hours for juggling the schedules of their children, fertility treatment benefits, adoption services coverage and nursing facilities.

ServiceTitan Inc., a Glendale-based software company for contractors, offers a breastfeeding shipping service through Maven Clinic Co. for new parents on work trips. ServiceTitan pays for Maven’s travel kits, including TSA-friendly ice packs, to safely store breast milk. Isha Vij, vice president at Maven Clinic, said the company’s offerings don’t necessarily substitute for a comprehensive health care package, but fills the care gaps many new parents fall into that hinder smooth returns to work.

“We offer these various kits to employers and employees so that they really don’t have to deal with one of the millions of challenges that they’re going to go through when they get on the road for business travel,” Vij said.

Employer business

Like Headspace, Maven started out as a direct-to-consumer business but evolved into a direct-to-employer platform and has since seen a boom in valuation. According to Vij, even as companies threatened to consolidate benefit vendors with the threat of a looming recession, Maven has seen a big inbound surge.

Last year, the virtual women’s health clinic partnered with Blue Shield of California to open its service to more than half of the insurance giant’s membership. 

Maven’s offerings could look particularly valuable for companies aiming to stand out in a hot labor market. August’s job numbers as reported by the Labor Department unexpectedly jumped, indicating that there were 9.61 million listings reported on the last day of August, a 700,000 jump from the previous month. The Bureau of Labor Statistics also reported the unemployment rate rose to 3.8% for the month from 3.5% in July.