My fav podcast, Gameplan, is back at it again with a fab episode on employee benefits. In Your Company Could Be Tricking You with Perks, the hosts speak with CEO and Founder of Basecamp Jason Friend to get his take on employee perks. In this episode you can forget ping pong tables and unlimited vacation, because Basecamp is killing it with employee perks that encourage employees to get out of the office and have a life.

“I don’t like benefits that encourage people to stay at work. Many companies have a lot of perks that are about keeping you in the office. It’s actually kind of a subversive effect. They’ll have an on-staff chef and they’ll make dinner for people. That to me, you shouldn’t be eating dinner at work. That’s the wrong place to eat dinner. So we do stuff that’s go home and do stuff.”

Among the many many many perks they offer:

• Charity match
• $100/month for massages offsite
• Fresh fruits and veggie CSA share at home
• Pay for hobbies that aren’t related to your job

On top of that, they offer summer hours: a 4 day, 32 hour work week. And they do it without reducing pay.

It’s worth listening to the whole episode to hear more about Jason’s take on what it means to be an employee, not offering equity, and not using perks as a recruiting tool.

The biggest perk according to Jason: having your full work day for yourself without coworkers “stealing” time.

Swoon.