For those who’ve adopted Buffer for some time, then you already know we have now a number of unusual approaches to teammate advantages and compensation. The instance I’ll dig into in the present day is our “Dependent Grant,” which we launched in 2016.
Our Dependent Grant is separate profit, exterior of wage, that we grant teammates who’re taking good care of and supporting relations. It’s an additional $3,000 USD per yr per little one, as much as 4 dependents whole. This has been considered one of our most uncommon (and at instances controversial) advantages.
Till just lately, this was granted for prolonged relations, like siblings, mother and father, and grandparents. After eight years, we’ve up to date this profit. As all the time, we’re right here to share the total story.
Our new Dependent Stipend in 2025
Beginning this yr, we’ve determined to use our stipend to dependent youngsters, and not embody companions or prolonged relations. It’s nonetheless a precedence to assist our teammates with younger kiddos, particularly throughout these uncommon weeks of work-related journey, similar to Retreat week.
The dependent stipend will proceed to be a pillar in our community of advantages designed to assist our group thrive in our distant work expertise. For instance, teammates typically apply this stipend to childcare similar to daycare or a nanny, which permits them to work through the day. To cite from a teammate within the unique dialogue: “supporting dependent youngsters has a novel and direct affect on how Buffer teammates can interact with their work.” The purpose was to strike this actual stability: generosity and assist for teammates because it pertains to work and our enterprise.
Past that, we really feel it’s a household selection how a teammate’s household approaches work, childcare, and prolonged familial assist. If we had limitless earnings, we’d like to assist each teammate in a wide range of completely different monetary conditions, and in reality this was the unique dream of this stipend again nearly 10 years in the past! Nevertheless, as a small enterprise, we have now to repeatedly discover the precise stability of generosity and pragmatism once we study our price range, our priorities, and our decisions.
That is how we’ll now outline a Dependent:
Underneath 18 years of ageResiding within the Buffer teammate’s dwelling at the least among the timeThe Buffer teammate is considered one of their major caregiversAll different conditions on a case-by-case foundation
This adjustment ensures that the stipend is concentrated on supporting childcare-related wants, bolstering our dedication to serving to teammates thrive in a distant work setting. Whether or not it’s offsetting childcare prices throughout work hours or easing the burden throughout work journey (like retreat weeks), this stipend is now targeted on providing sensible assist to teammates with younger households.
Underneath the brand new construction, we have now 59 dependents throughout 31 teammates who’re receiving assist, with a projected price range of $117,000 for the yr — a quantity that can doubtless develop as we welcome new Buffer infants or rent teammates with dependents all through 2025.
Once we reevaluated the profit in 2024, Buffer was supporting 99 dependents, together with:
59 children22 spouses/partners15 parents2 siblings1 grandparent
At $3,000 per dependent, this amounted to a complete of $297,000 per yr.
To be clear, whereas we all know this matter has monetary implications, our deep dive into the dependent stipend was pushed extra by the dedication to transparency and equity. For instance, transparency is missing on this matter; this stipend just isn’t included in our public salaries, and the idea of a dependent was being utilized in a different way throughout the group.
Why we modified our Dependent Stipend
Late in 2024, we held a “Management Collaboration Week“, targeted on taking a step again from the day-to-day enterprise and asking greater questions on our technique, tradition, or execution.
I introduced up our Dependent Stipend, and lots of teammates chimed in to unpack the cultural and monetary implications of providing this profit. (As with all subjects that relate to cash, not everybody has the identical perspective, however I liked that we had been in a position to have a very open dialogue concerning the matter.)
Right here’s a abstract of some components of the stipend that work properly for the Buffer group:
We love the concept of supporting working mother and father. On the whole, fashionable capitalism forces mother and father to make powerful tradeoffs between work and household, and we need to assist make these tradeoffs a bit of bit simpler. (That is one motivation behind our four-day workweek as properly.)As a result of we’re totally distant, we periodically ask teammates to journey to a central location for coworking and bonding. When mother and father journey for work, it requires a variety of preparation and assist, a few of which incurs further prices, particularly associated to childcare. We attempt to be beneficiant with teammates, and we liked attending to assist teammates who had been serving to out a member of the family going via a tricky time and never in a position to work. We’re a US-based firm, however we have now teammates all around the world. This stage of generosity supported a wide range of international cultures, a few of which have extra family-sharing than others.
However, listed here are the weather that felt a bit off concerning the stipend:
We’re meticulous about equity and transparency in terms of our wage system. This fund is separate from wage, and since we took a “no-questions-asked” method, we ended up with some huge disparities in how this was utilized throughout the group, which felt out of line with our method to total compensation and advantages. It felt a bit off to provide extra cash to teammates whose spouses and companions selected to not work in distinction to these companions who did. I typically discovered myself twisted into logic puzzles on this one. For instance, a household with an at-home dad or mum typically didn’t pay for exterior childcare, however these had been the teammates whose spouses had been eligible for the grant. (After all, the grant is way lower than childcare prices in a yr in most locations, however nonetheless.)
We mirrored on these components and the way we felt about them in gentle of Buffer’s Values and our compensation philosophy (which is to attempt to be clear, honest, beneficiant, and easy), and ended up with a brand new model of this grant for the long run.
Over to you!
When this profit was first launched in 2018, every Buffer teammate claimed a median of 1.04 dependents. By 2020, that quantity had elevated to 1.2 dependents per teammate. In 2024, it had risen additional to 1.35 dependents per teammate — a mirrored image of how our group’s lives and obligations have advanced over time.
Considered one of Buffer’s core Working Ideas is to prioritize long-term pondering — constructing an organization that thrives for many years, embracing affected person progress, and planning forward for our business and the world. This precept extends to our group as properly: 54% of our present teammates have been with Buffer for 5 years or longer. As they’ve grown with us, so have the caregiving obligations for a lot of who’ve welcomed youngsters whereas at Buffer. Our dependent stipend has been a mirrored image of this dedication, evolving alongside our group to offer significant assist at completely different phases of life.
As all the time, we’d love to listen to your ideas. Please share within the feedback under, or attain out on our social pages!
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