Google workers get death perks

(Associateed Press)

Google is considered a leader among leaders when it comes to company perks for employees – in life and now in death.

Forbes magazine recently interviewed the search engine company’s “chief people officer” who disclosed that a surviving spouse or partner of a Google employee now receives 50 percent of the deceased staffer’s pay for 10 years – regardless of how long the staffer was employed.

According to the interview with Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock, who said the new policy became effective last year, deceased employees’ stocks are also vested immediately and surviving children receive monthly payments of $1,000 until they reach age 19, or age 23 if the child is a full-time student.

The perks, however, are just as notable in birth. When it comes to paid maternity leave, new mothers get 18 weeks and fathers get 12 weeks.

Google ranks No. 1 on Fortune magazine’s list of the 100 best companies to work for in the category of “Unusual perks”.

The perks at its Mountain View, Calif., headquarters include free gourmet food at 25 cafeterias, weekly supplies of subsidized local seafood, on-site laundry, dry-cleaning and alterations, an outdoor sports complex and, in New York, in-house eyebrow shaping at a deep discount. Employees also receive free tech devices, including Android smartphones.

According to Forbes’ interview with Brock, Google goes to great lengths to determine what perks to off:

Google People experts use three methods to tap into the needs of employees: an annual survey called “Googlegeist” that measures the temperature of employees in every department and analyzes data to identify emerging trends, employee resource groups (read: clubs) where like-minded employees share ideas that are funneled up to HR (Bock says the most active are the “Grayglers,” the self-titled club for over-the-hill Googlers), and email aliases that run the gamut from financial advice to childcare options to café feedback.

Do your company’s perks come anywhere near Google’s?