From free chef-prepared lunches to an all-expense paid trip of a lifetime, local companies are offering big incentives to get the best employees.
You don't have to go to Silicon Valley to find interesting companies with great benefits.
41 Action News found three well-known companies in the metro with unique perks.
VML is an ad agency that does it all. They are on the forefront of every digital technology and create strong messages for brand names all over the globe.
At VML, all employees are given two days of company time to volunteer with the charity of their choice.
The company also closes its doors once a year so all the staff can do charity work in the community.
VML encourages employees to do their best work so they can win a free trip of a lifetime. Employees who do something great can get nominated for a chance to win the trip, called the Spark Award. One employee is awarded the trip every year.
"I went to Hawaii," said Shali Wade, who won the trip a few years ago. "When I got to my hotel room, there was a bottle of wine and chocolates from the CEO and my boss, telling me to have a great time. It was amazing."
Wade said winning the trip was an honor and it's one of the many reasons she has been with the company for almost 10 years.
Another company with great perks is Populous, which creates huge structures for thousands of people. They design stadiums, arenas, racetracks, convention centers and more. They have projects on almost every continent.
Employees at Populous get to travel a lot. After a major project is finished, the company pays for employees who helped design and build it to travel to that structure for opening day. They can take their families along too.
"This practice has fundamentally created an industry in itself," said Greg Sherlock, a principal architect at Populous. "As architects, travel is what really brings us alive. We like to work in different cultures, because that becomes part of the project. It's important that we have a diverse culture of thinkers."
And in Overland Park, the Culinary Center of Kansas City teaches people how to become rock stars in the kitchen. It's a dynamic learning center that wants its chefs to do more than just teach. Employees at the center get to take fields trips.
"People told me you couldn't do it and now I'm 20 years into this and I'm telling you it’s a lot of fun," said Laura Laiben, the founder of the Culinary Center. "We go on quite a few field trips around town. We check out everything from distilleries to manufacturing concerns to where they make the best Philly cheesesteak. I believe there is a lot of magic when you do that. When you take your employees off site, it exposes them and makes them more creative."
At the Culinary Center of Kansas City, employees get chef-prepared lunches most days. The company also pays its employees to do charity work on the company's time.
These companies offer great perks not just to be nice, they do it for another reason.
At every company we visited, the employees said the extra incentives made them feel more appreciated and more creative. It’s that creativity that these companies need to stay ahead of the competition.
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Richard Sharp can be reached at richard.sharp@kshb.com.
