Hangover Leave and Other Fantasy Benefits American Workers Want

• A new poll commissioned by Trusaic ranked the types of unusual new job benefits that workers would like to see their employers offer.  
• Nearly one fourth of all respondents in the poll voted for “paid celebration recovery leave” as a fantasy job perk they would like to see employers offer, which is actually “hangover leave.”  

• While employers are having to offer more and more new benefits to retain their workers and attract new ones in the current climate, it’s highly unlikely that employers/companies will ever get to the point of having to offer benefits such as “houseplant bereavement leave” or “breakup leave.”

The past few years under the new working conditions of the pandemic gave workers quite the upper hand, and employers were pretty willing to offer a range of benefits to retain their employees.  

Remote and hybrid working became the norm, as well as a new and favorite way of working (which workers are still trying to hang on to).

In the war for talent and a labor shortage, employers had to get creative and generous with the benefits they could offer their workers.  

A new poll commissioned by Trusaic (and conducted by YouGov) ranked the types of unusual new job benefits that workers would like to see their employers offer. 

Nearly one fourth of all respondents to the poll voted for “paid celebration recovery leave” as a fantasy job perk they would like to see employers offer, which is actually “hangover leave.”   

Here’s a list of fantasy/unusual job perks workers voted for:

Breakup leave: Breakups can be hard, and as such, 17% of all respondents and roughly 44 million Americans chose “breakup leave” as a desired job perk for employers to start offering. 

House plant bereavement leave: It’s normal to mourn the loss of a pet, but what about a beloved house plant? Perhaps the loss of a favorite house plant was so significant that you would need to call out of work the next day to mourn and recover. As it shows, 5% of respondents, or roughly 13 million Americans would like to see “house plant bereavement leave.” 

Paid celebration recovery leave: This is a fancy name for taking leave from work because you’re hungover. 25% of people polled said they’d like this work perk, which equals out to about 59 million people.

Leave for heartsick sports fans: Sporting events are occurring constantly, all year round, and die-hard fans feel emotional pain when their team loses. Some 9% of respondents opted for this perk, which is the equivalent to 23 million Americans. 

Social media detox days: People are looking to disconnect and recover from the stimulation overload of social media. About 12% of respondents, or 31 million Americans chose “social media detox days” as a job perk that they would like to see from their employers. 

The question is, should employers take this seriously?   

At the moment — definitely not — but it is funny to see what employees truly want from their workplace benefits, even if they are frivolous.   

While employers are having to offer more and more new benefits to retain their workers and attract new ones in the current climate, it’s highly unlikely that employers/companies will ever get to the point of having to offer benefits to facilitate mourning houseplants and bad alcohol choices.  

“While new, creative job perks like those we’ve discussed today may be effective in helping organizations differentiate themselves from the competition, research shows that the biggest selling point employees look for in an employer is fair compensation,” according to Trusaic.