I used to take these for granted. Maybe I’ve become more Zen, or just more thankful for the small things in life, who knows, but really, who doesn’t like free stuff? I think half my wardrobe is game company gear and at one point I had loads of gaming memorabilia. After another moment of Zen, however, I sold most of it (which I slightly regret) but the fact remains, companies are savvy to you (and me) liking treats in whatever form they come. The goodies are getting better and better as companies vie to keep your attention and loyalty. The list below includes some commonly experienced perks:
• Swag – Free T-shirts, hoodies, hats, scarves, statues, 3D prints, desk items that light up or game completion items as special edition trophies/objects that you can mount on a wall. The list is endless.
• Free food/drinks – Some places have canteens with free or subsidised food, pantries full of candy and free drinks, fruit, nuts, coffee, and tea or even an in-house barista.
• Flexible hours – Need to run to the shops or drop your dog at doggy day-care, don’t want to be fighting with traffic? Shifting your hours about can help with that.
• Working from home – Avoid the long commute, just work from home. The benefits are massive, more time with your family and friends. The downside can be a degree of loneliness and possible lack of team cohesion.
• Maternity/paternity leave – Important time off for new mums and dads. Best to do your homework on this, time off allowance and whether it’s paid for varies.
• Subsidised gym – Often memberships are expensive, so the company will contribute a good percentage of the monthly fee, keeping you healthy and not breaking the bank account.
• Employee referral bonus – If you get your friend a job and they successfully make it past the probation period, companies will pay you a bonus. Get another friend in, you win again. I’m not talking life-changing money, but it’ll pay for a game console.
• Company events – Gone-gold parties, summer BBQ, holiday season get togethers, often free bar and free food and entertainment.
• Wellness programme – Activities to promote good health, flu shots, meditation, weight loss, smoking cessation, health screening, etc.
As you can see, there’s a mass of offers to keep employees happy. While some people may value them more than their salary, it’s important to understand the wider context of corporate benefits. Similarly, company benefits are the big brother to the little perks. Incentives and bonus schemes can make a big difference to your life now and in the future if you take them seriously. I find all these benefits are really types of investment, in both your health and your finances, so let’s take a deeper look at the rewards you can reap.
This is what you want to know really, isn’t it? Headline-grabbing, large pay-outs are the stuff legends are made of. Tales abound of employees making it big and retiring, or buying a house or new car with a bonus. To be frank, who wouldn’t want a bit of extra cash in their bank account? The lure of the bonus is strong, and if you work for a company with high rewards, there will be high demands, the two go together. If you’re not careful, you could chase the promise of a bonus at the cost of everything else.
In my career, I’ve been lucky to share in the success of multiple companies. Was it right time, right place? Probably. In my second game job I joined a new company and had the chance to buy stock in the venture, so I invested £8,000 of my own money, which was the last of my inheritance. It was a risky move, but I knew some of the team and the CEO was my old boss, so I felt it was a ‘safe’ bet. Initially, I made some money, which paid for a new kitchen in a tiny house my wife and I had bought. As the company expanded and became more successful, my shares grew and so did the value.
When I came to leave the company, they gave me some poor advice. It was from trusted sources and being young and naïve; I took their word for it. I left the UK and went to work in the US. In this time my old company was bought out, and the value of my shares was initially strong. By my calculation the shares were worth about £350,000. I didn’t sell my shares on the advice they gave me and two years later, the company folded (it’s a long, complicated story). By then, my shares were worth the gut-wrenching sum of zero pounds. A hard lesson to learn at any age.
My move to the US turned out to be a good one though as Epic Games was about to create another winner. They had the Unreal Tournament series and games engine, but they were making an alternative universe and game with a next-gen version of the Unreal engine. Gears of War turned out to be a knock-it-out-of-the-park winner, and the bonuses were sizeable. For some it meant life-changing amounts.
Talking to others about this, it seems I got really lucky. But opportunities exist, especially if you’re the sort to take a risk, but it’s not something I’d advocate without doing your homework and having a fallback. Remember, this is the exception rather than the rule. As a new player in the games industry, your options are normally limited, especially if you are joining a well-established company. But don’t let this put you off! Bonuses do happen (when companies are successful), maybe not life-changing amounts, but smaller and more frequent, and my philosophy is that any extra that turns up in the bank account is always appreciated.
So, let’s look at the common ways employees can be rewarded:
• Personal performance bonus. As part of your regular Personal Development Review (PDR), you’ll be assessed on performance (we cover this area in depth later), and how you perform will influence your bonus rating. How each company calculates its score differs, and in some you accumulate points, while elsewhere it’s a number assessed and given each year.
This is normally a yearly bonus which is an extra sum of money around the end of December or near the end of the tax year. This only happens when the company can afford it. No money in the bank, no bonus. It’s discretionary, so try to avoid falling into the trap of expecting a bonus.
• Project performance bonus. Say that the game you have worked on for years sells millions of units and the company makes large amounts of profit. Some of this profit will be assigned to a bonus pool. Your contribution to the project, time served, bonus tier (yes, there can be different multipliers) and your previous personal performance reviews influence how much bonus money you receive.
• Share options. While less useful to you now, it’s worth being aware of your options further on in your career. These are sweeteners to attract and keep senior employees. What’s the big deal about becoming a shareholder, you might ask? It’s another way of gaining more money on top of everything else! Here are some essentials of share ownership:
• You can hold stock in different ways and companies offer different tiers of ownership.
• An option, as it’s known, allows you to buy shares, at a pre-approved price, off the company at a later date. When you purchase your share(s), they call this exercising your option.
• Options are not real shares until they are exercised. Therefore, while you have these options, all you have is the right to buy shares in the company in the future.
• The Incentive Stock Option (ISO) is the most common of stock option schemes, but as I mentioned, there are others that can be offered by the company.
• That’s all good, but how does it benefit me? By having shares in the company, you can make more money in other ways:
• If the company does well, it pays bonus money to the shareholders, which is called a ‘dividend’. So, you, as an employee, potentially, can get a bonus on a bonus on a bonus.
• If you decide to sell your shares in the future and the value of each share has gone up, then you will make a profit, adding more money into your account. Conversely, if you sell it when the value has dipped, you will incur a loss.
• All this extra cash will be taxed. Remember that nothing is free!
Things to think about
• Invest in yourself. Don’t blow what you earn on things that lose value, and instead buy things that are an investment (health, skills, knowledge) and use it to level yourself up.
• The golden handcuffs. It’s possible to get to a point in your later career where you hate your job and love the money. You stay because of the high salary and/or bonuses each year, but you are desperately unhappy. It’s a well-known situation, and it’s important to sit down and really figure out what’s going to make you happy. It might involve less money, only you will know what to do!
• Financial planning. The secret to good financial health is good financial planning. As discussed in the pension advice section, find a good financial advisor, but don’t blindly leave it in their hands. I recommend you keep up with your own regular financial planning. After all, it’s your money, so don’t you want to know where it’s going? Don’t be frightened of what seems a complicated area. If you take control, you’ll find it liberating!
If I said that you could enter a scheme in which, if you paid in £100, someone gave you another £100 on top, would you be interested? And if you could do that every month, year on year, would you be interested? Then if in 50 years, you could* have access to just under half a million pounds, would you be interested? Of course, you would. So, let’s talk about pensions!
*It’s all theoretical at this point. Investing £200 a month for 50 years with a 2.5% yearly interest rate and at 3% inflation (cost of living) would generate £463,736.11.
Stick with me because I think it’s important. This section is all about future proofing yourself. It’s the ‘plan today, live well tomorrow’ school of thought, no sticking your head in the sand! Just like I’m not a doctor, I’m also not a financial advisor, so seek professional advice when the times comes.
Here are some common questions on the subject:
What’s a pension?
In basic terms, when you’re working, a pension is money put into an account, which you do until you retire. Some of this money comes from your salary, and, if you work for a company, some is paid in by your employer. On retiring, you get to spend that money, and if your investment has done well, you’ll have enough for an enjoyable old age.
Why start as early as possible?
The earlier you start, the better off you will be in the future, especially if your company offers to match the amount you put away each month. That’s doubling your money right there.
Aren’t pensions risky?
Pensions are investments, spread over company stocks, shares, cash and property to name a few. Investments can go up in value and they can go down. When you take on a pension, its risk level is derived normally from your attitude towards risk versus reward. Your pension advisor will help with choosing the risk level that best suits your current circumstances. Pensions are not a short-term gamble, they’re part of a long-term investment strategy.
Where can I get more advice?
You can find independent financial advice or, as is often the case, the pension company will provide financial advice as part of the pension package they create for your company. Pension companies have websites to view and track your investment.
I’ve heard many an artist profess they have yet to log in, so please do so at least once a year to keep track. That way, when you have your yearly review with the financial advisor, you’ll be better prepared to ask questions. Don’t worry, this isn’t an exam and stupid questions are always welcome, otherwise, how would you learn anything?
Ok, sermon over. In short, get investing in yourself and therefore, your future.
While not as immediately interesting as bonuses and saving for your future, insurance is there to provide stability and security for you as you develop your career and is therefore just as important. It’s more important than ever that employers provide an attractive package as part of the benefits to tempt you away from any competitors and keep you within the organisation.
I think we’ve established that your health is important to you and to your new employer, so let’s look at some common insurance schemes made available to staff:
• Medical insurance (mental and physical)
• Dental insurance (keep those choppers clean)
• Vision care (eye checks)
• Critical illness cover (when you can’t work, covers your costs depending on policy)
• Death in service (normally two to four times your annual salary)
People pick their companies not only for the projects but also the benefits they offer, which applies especially to artists in the US, where there is no national health system.
Health providers have become increasingly savvy, including rewards with their health plans. You can now earn goodies, such as free cinema tickets, coffees, reduced price gym equipment and footwear, spa breaks, etc all based on how much you exercise. They will even subsidise the payments on personal health-tracking devices, so it is well worth doing those extra steps every day to reap the benefits.
Because of the complexity and variety within companies, I advise you doing further homework doing further homework before starting with a company and understanding their benefit systems. It’s all too easy as a Junior Artist to sign on the dotted line and think ‘I’ll worry about that another day,’ but with a little extra digging, you’ll give yourself a stronger foundation.