Some companies are going warm and cuddly with their employee benefits and perks, writes Rhymer Rigby, but that could be about to change.
EUROPE'S BIGGEST swimming pool builder Piscines Ideales wins plenty of awards as a good place to work.
For employees who get married it is even better - they get a month's extra salary, loans to start their new life together and the company even puts the cars of the chief executive and chairman cars at their disposal for the wedding.
In addition, the patter of little feet attracts a bonus of €500 for each child and, perhaps mindful of Europe's tumbling birth rate, the company doubles this from the third child onwards.
Chief executive Stelios Stavridis says the scheme comes from an "intense desire" to promote work-life balance.
Innocent Drinks, the London-based smoothie maker, is also keen to salute milestones outside the office. "We give people who get married or enter into civil partnerships an extra five days' holiday," says Karen Callaghan, head of people. "The thinking behind it is that getting married is a pretty big deal and that it is nice to be able to take a longer honeymoon or holiday."
Ms Callaghan adds that Innocent also marks everyone's birthday with something called the "circle of death": "An e-mail goes around, a member of your team has to bake you a cake and you have to tell a story."
Recognition of personal milestones is not confined to smaller businesses. Goldman Sachs gives employees who get hitched an extra paid week off; Canada's national broadcaster, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, also gives employees an extra week when they get married - and one day off for divorce proceedings in court should the need arise.
At UK-based Bayford Oil, staff who meet their sales targets can take their birthday off.
However, warm and cuddly as these initiatives to recognise personal milestones sound, they are becoming pretty rare.
"In my experience not many businesses do this sort of thing", says Julie Vile, a flexible-benefits consultant at human resources consultancy Watson Wyatt.
"Long-service awards are still quite normal, but the idea that you give people time off because they have got married or had a child was probably much more common in the past."
It has, she adds, "a slightly paternalistic feel about it". More usual, she says, is to allow people flexible benefits and time off around "life events".
"So you might allow someone a day off to move house or when they get married or for whatever reason or you might give them study leave, but linking it to events such as marriage is likely to be rarer."
Also, as Ms Vile notes, although the initiatives sound great, employees might be better off with a different overall package. Innocent used to give out baby bonuses but Ms Callaghan says this is changing as the company enhances its overall maternity and paternity packages; the end result, she says, will be better for staff.
Similarly, credit card operator MBNA used to give employees time off when they got married. This stopped when the company was bought by Bank of America in 2006. The overall package "is [now] much more comprehensive," it says.
Tying fewer benefits to family events could have other advantages too. Although employers invariably cover themselves legally by ensuring that marriages and civil partnerships get equal time and that if they pay baby bonuses, they do something similar for those adopting, they may nonetheless incur the annoyance of those who have no interest in either committing to each other in law or raising a family.
Singles may complain about "partnerism" in the workplace, especially when it comes to social events.
Elsewhere in the world, organisations might look at this quibbling over positive incentivisation with bemusement. Iranian newspapers recently reported that the state-owned petrochemical and gas business, the Pars Special Economic Energy Zone Company, issued a directive telling its employees to get married or get out.
"Unfortunately, some of our colleagues did not fulfil their commitments and are still single," the directive was quoted in the Etemad newspaper as saying.
"As being married is one of the criteria of employment, we are announcing for the last time that all female and male colleagues have until September 21st to go ahead with this duty." - (Financial Times service)
