🙇 👪 🗣️ Preferential packages: what is added to the salaries of IT specialists in Armenia? 🖐🏽 🤙🏻 🐆

Today I decided to touch upon the topic of benefits and bonuses that world and Armenian IT companies offer their own employees. In addition to the projects and technologies that the company uses, one of the ways to win the heart of the candidate is to offer a set of benefits and advantages. If they significantly affect the life of the employee and create comfortable working conditions, such a workplace becomes desirable and attractive.

Compensation or preferential package is a competitive advantage that helps to retain specialists. In addition, as soon as the company becomes known for the proposed package of additional benefits, talented employees quickly become interested in such offers, finding and hiring personnel becomes easier.

So, what exactly is a benefit package in IT companies in Armenia, and what is a reliable employee benefit plan? To delve deeper into the topic, I studied the common practices used around the world and compared the benefits packages of 45 Armenian companies in the information technology industry.

What is the benefits package?

Benefits and benefits vary from company to company, but this is not always an additional salary, bonuses and bonuses in cash, mainly non-cash compensation. The package is provided by organizations in addition to wages, may include only one offer or represent an extensive set of components.

Considering the world practice, among the most frequently offered benefits are medical insurance, flexible terms of cooperation (flexible hours, options for working at home, extra days off in a year), assistance in educational processes in the form of compensation for training or on-site courses.

Now consider each benefit separately:

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Training Assistance: Many IT industry enterprises invest in the training of their employees. Some offer professional compensation for certification, others offer on-site language courses, internal trainings, lunches, and tuition, and can support educational initiatives in any other form. Assistance in training is the privilege of companies receiving a direct return on their investment.

According to Harvard Business Review studies, benefits offered by employers that do not directly affect employee finances and lifestyles are less desirable. That is, offsite events, office dinners and coffee breaks, team meetings will not be a priority privilege when choosing a workplace. The survey also showed that 80% of IT professionals would prefer a salary increase over other benefits and privileges.

The most desirable benefits according to world studies

Take Google, the IT industry giant, for a long time it has become famous in the world community for its lunch prepared by a professional chef, two-week massages in special armchairs, hairdresser services and yoga classes. Employees of the no less famous Twitter receive three meals a day, balanced nutrition, acupuncture procedures and improvisation.

SAS, in turn, has a college scholarship program for the children of its employees; lesser-known IT companies boast vacation reimbursement and free libraries.

But what can a business do if it cannot afford the benefits similar to Google? A new study in the field of benefit packages found that after medical insurance, employees especially appreciate the flexible work schedule, the opportunity to take additional paid leave and work at home. It was also found that employees who hold highly paid positions and receive various allowances crave a minimum of benefits.

What is included in the benefits package of a company recognized as one of the best jobs in 2019?

In 2019, Zoom Video Communications took first place in the ranking of the best IT companies, compiled by Glassdoor, second place in the list of the best companies for recruiting IT people. The package provided to employees includes both material and additional benefits:

medical insurance, including the services of a dentist and an ophthalmologist;
gym and wellness program;
performance bonuses;
maternity leave;
paid sick days, volunteer leave;
free daily meals;
modern, equipped kitchen in offices;
various events;
conferences, vocational training;
mentoring program.

Undoubtedly, the giants of the IT industry can boast of such a package of benefits, but let's go back to the Armenian companies operating in the information technology sector and consider their benefits as an addition to wages.

What is offered in the Armenian market?

I collected information on the benefit packages of 45 Armenian IT companies, it is publicly available and was taken from the websites of companies or workplaces. The list includes all types of companies: from local startups and companies to branches and development centers of international corporations.

I deliberately did not include such benefits as coffee, cookies, fruits on the list, since almost all companies, with rare exceptions, consider such advantages a common occurrence for each office. Most Armenian companies do not provide all the benefits immediately, but only after passing the trial period. Also, I did not take into account the conditions under which referral bonuses are organized. The presence of certain benefits for employees is clearly demonstrated by the following schedule:

Top 3 in the list of privileges of Armenian IT companies

Following the global trends that I described above, health insurance is the No. 1 advantage provided by most companies. For instance:

Webb Fontaine mentions that full health insurance includes a package for family members;
Workfront provides medical benefits for ten days after the first day of illness;
Renderforest clarifies that the package covers 1.5 million Armenian drams per year (approximately 2,845 EUR);
Optym provides not only an insurance package for the employee and family members, but also accident insurance.

Next in the list are regular team meetings, corporate events, parties or retreats, movie or game evenings, happy hours and all kinds of joint activities. I will give a few examples:

EventGeek , – -, ;
Webb Fontaine ;
RockBite Games , Mortal Kombat 11 .

Some companies may not mention team building as a component of the benefits package, as this is considered part of the default IT culture. That is why the number of benefits can be much higher than those described in my review.

In third place in terms of popularity of offers from Armenian IT companies are training (25% of respondents prefer vacancies that include such a proposal). This also includes any other assistance in training and educational processes. A few examples:

Benivo provides unlimited subscription PluralSight - the American educational online program for IT administrators and creative professionals;
Renderforest organizes seminars in English for beginners and advanced students every week;
Webb Fontaine provides professional compensation for certification of IT professionals;
ServiceTitan allocates a budget for employee training and development;
SYNERGY encourages employees with lunches during which classes are held, also conducts semi-annual trainings and certification programs;
Priotix includes both professional certification and college tuition reimbursement.

In addition to the trainings, 12 Armenian IT companies specifically mention language courses as part of the benefits package.

Other Most Desired Benefits of Armenian IT Companies

According to Harvard Business Review, flexible hours of work and remote work options are some of the most desirable benefits. In Armenia, 9 companies offer flexible hours, 4 employers provide for work at home. The conditions vary from company to company - some employees are not limited by the number of days during which they can work remotely, other companies narrow it down to a specific number of days in one month.

Among the Armenian IT companies, which include flexible working hours, which are included in the package of benefits:

PicsArt and Disqo;
DataArt and SoloLearn;
Krisp and EventGeek;
Fifth LLC and SmartClick;
Devolon

It should also be noted that startup games PicsArt, SFL, Krisp and RockBite are open for remote settings.

More and more Armenian IT companies are starting to include stock options in their benefits package. Such a privilege gives an employee the opportunity to buy a certain number of company shares at a specified price for a certain period of time. This is usually the market price at the time the option is offered. An employee can buy shares at a set price and sell them when the shares have grown, or hold them, postponing the sale for a long time.

Important note: stock options are not provided to every employee of the company, and the conditions are determined individually for each recipient. In some companies, only executives benefit, and in others, all top-level developers.

Among the Armenian IT companies that I compared, 8 of them offer stock options for employees:

Vineti;
Workfront
ServiceTitan
SoloLearn;
Optym;
10web;
Krisp;
Benivo.

Additional financial support for Armenian IT specialists

Armenian IT companies also have a number of financial advantages. Among them:

performance bonuses;
referral bonuses;
annual bonuses or 13th salary, as some companies call remuneration.

Armenian companies Digitain, PicsArt, Synergy, Webb Fontaine, Benivo provide financial support for marriage and childbirth, for employees' birthdays, but it is a mistake to think that other startups do not organize celebrations and gifts - this is often provided by default. In addition, Priotix provides financial services at preferential rates, while Benivo provides advance payments for employees in case of difficulty.

The importance of an IT professional benefits package

For the candidates of Armenian companies, the benefits of the package are obvious. Most of the benefits provide substantial financial support and significantly improve the quality of work and life. The question arises - why, directly, does the company go for it?

Of course, on the part of the company, the costs are quite high, but a comprehensive package of benefits helps to attract and retain real talents, since it shows that the company invests in the well-being of employees. And this is the main difference between the employer and many competitors in the labor market in Armenia.

Returning to the international community, I want to say that, similarly to IT specialists in Armenia, administrators and industry experts from all over the world are ready to take low-paid vacancies if loans and bonuses for training are present in the preferential package. Although the proposal sounds quite expensive, it is easier for legal entities to take advantage of tax benefits and other programs that allow you to allocate small amounts for free training for one employee.

And in conclusion, I would like to divide the employees into male and female, since women working in information technology are more likely to choose a job with benefits in the form of family benefits (childcare, maternity leave, etc.) and remote work. And the male half of the specialists prefers retreats, corporate events, gyms and team training.

Preferential packages: what is added to the salaries of IT specialists in Armenia?