The Real Perk Report: What Employees Actually Want

Although workplace initiatives like game rooms, on-site dry cleaning, and four-star meals have their appeal, Our analysis has uncovered a different reality. A clear signal emerging from this list of perks based on total mentions by employees is the need to prioritize health and well-being.

1. Health Benefits

Health benefits top the list with 124 mentions, spanning health insurance, private medical cover, employer-funded healthcare, and Health Savings Accounts (HSAs). In a climate of rising healthcare costs, coverage isn't a nice-to-have - it's a necessity.

2. Well-being

Well-being programs and wellness initiatives account for 122 mentions on their own. Add the 57 mentions of mental health benefits, and well-being's true footprint climbs to 179 - the single biggest theme in the entire study. It’s a health benefit in practice because the everyday habits and support systems can help employees well before a medical issue requires coverage.

Well-being has stopped being a bonus. It's now an expectation. 

3. Flexibility and Remote Work

Flexibility continues to be a defining feature of an appealing workplace. The most frequently cited benefits are hybrid schedules, remote work, flexible hours, four-day weeks, and work-from-home options. Racking up 111 mentions, flexible, remote work is no longer a trend.

With control over when and where work happens, employees have room to manage physical and mental health on their own terms, rather than build it around a fixed schedule.

4. Paid Leave

Earning 101 mentions, paid leave strongly reinforces just how central work-life balance has become to how employees evaluate a job. This perk covers annual leave, PTO, parental leave, and sick leave.

As employees have time to rest, recover, and care for family without sacrificing income, paid leave carries a health benefit dimension. 

5. Financial and Retirement Benefits

Although financial perks make sense as a top drawer of talent, Financial and Retirement Benefits only receive 90 mentions, ranking 5th on this list. This category covers pension contributions, bonuses and stock options, and retirement plans. 

Later in this report, the data will show that these benefits are among the perks companies promote far more than employees discuss on their own. 

6-7. Professional Development/Mental Health Benefits

Professional development (75 mentions) and mental health benefits (57 mentions) round out the top seven. Each one represents a different kind of investment for the employer, but both are about the employee as a whole person (as opposed to a transactional compensation), in who they are becoming.

One is forward-looking, covering training programs, career development and tuition support that build toward where an employee is headed. The other deals with the present through counseling and therapy services that support how an employee is doing right now. Both mentions are employer-led.

8. The Standout: Standing Desks and Ergonomic Workstations

Unlike every other perk in the top 10, more than 80% of standing desk conversations were started by employees, not employers. Standing desks and ergonomic workstations ranked eighth overall with 56 mentions, well ahead of headline-making perks like life insurance or bonus and equity compensation, both getting zero mentions from employees.

Employees are choosing to raise the topic of comfort, movement and physical well-being on their own, whether or not their employer is talking about it.

9. Life and Disability Insurance

Life and disability insurance ranked ninth with 35 mentions, all from the employer’s side. It's a benefit that shows up consistently in job listings and careers pages, but employees in the dataset never raised it on their own. This finding doesn’t necessarily mean the perk isn’t valued at all by employees, but it may signal that it’s the kind of benefit people assume is in place instead of one they think to mention.

10. Generic Desk/Chair

Rounding out the top 10, Generic Desk/Chair receives 31 mentions. Unlike insurance, the trend here is going in the opposite direction: 4 in 5 of those conversations come from employees. 

Paired with the standing desk findings above, it reinforces the same throughline: Workstation comfort is one of the few areas where employee conversation is outpacing employer promotion. 

Ranked by absolute gap, which is how much more (or less) employees talk about a perk compared to how much employers promote it, the data below reveals that employers talk about perks more than employees do.

In the dataset, employers exclusively mention professional development (75), mental health benefits (57), and life insurance (35), whereas employees discussed health benefits (18), well-being (6), financial packages (5), and paid leave (11) comparatively little. 

The gap, however, isn’t indicative of value: low employee mention volume doesn't mean low employee value. It might indicate expectations; health coverage and paid leave have become a baseline part of employment that employees are less likely to mention each one.

Workplace comfort, with standing desks and ergonomic workstations, is the exception to the broader pattern. It’s one of the few perks mentioned largely by employees.

Across a broad, global sample of employees and employers, both groups aren’t mentioning the same perks. 

Companies lead with health benefits, well-being programs, and financial packages; perks that look good in a job listing. Employees, meanwhile, are more likely to bring up the benefits that shape their actual, daily experience of work: how their body feels after work, whether their desk supports a full day of focus, whether their workspace works for them instead of against them. 

Driven primarily by employee conversations, standing desks and ergonomic workstations tell that story most clearly and present an opportunity for companies in search of talent. But workplace comfort is barely marketed. 

As companies rethink how to attract and retain talent, the perks that employees raise unprompted are worth a closer look. Sometimes, the benefit that says the most isn't the one being sold hardest. It's the one people keep bringing up on their own. 

We analyzed 2,000 employer sources, including job advertisements, company careers pages and LinkedIn job posts, to identify the workplace perks employers promote during recruitment. The employer sample drew on a broad, global mix of listings, with a meaningful concentration from the UAE and wider GCC region (320 of the 2,000 sources). These findings were compared with more than 1,000 employee reviews and workplace discussions from platforms including Glassdoor, Indeed, Reddit, Blind and Fishbowl, to understand which workplace benefits employees talk about most.

Each mention was grouped into one of 15 workplace perk categories, including health benefits, well-being, flexible working, paid leave, financial and retirement benefits, professional development, mental health support, standing desks and ergonomic workstations, office facilities, food and snacks, fitness benefits and life insurance. Every mention was classified as either employer-generated or employee-generated. After removing duplicate and generic mentions, the final dataset comprised 1,121 workplace perk mentions, analyzed to compare the benefits companies promote with the perks employees discuss most.

Mention counts reflect the frequency with which a perk was discussed, not sentiment. A perk with a high mention count came up often in employer or employee sources; this does not indicate whether the sentiment behind those mentions was positive, negative or neutral. Given the mixed global and GCC composition of the sample, findings are presented as broadly applicable workplace trends rather than conclusions specific to any single region.

Data was collected and analyzed in July 2026.

Full data and methodology:

NAVO Workplace Perks Analysis - July 2026