DEATH BENEFITS: Google workers get sweet perks for life and death

Staff Writers
August 10, 2012
news.com.au

IT’S no secret Google employees get a sweet deal when it comes to job perks, including gourmet food, on-site doctors and free haircuts. But until now, we didn’t know just how good they have it.

Google’s chief people officer Laszlo Bock has revealed a new “death benefits” that means employees are covered not just in life, but in death.

The never-before-released details of the tech giant’s perks program include an amazing benefit that if a Googler dies while under the tech giant’s employ, their spouse or life partner will receive 50 per cent of their salary for the next decade.

We’ll say that again. The next decade.

Death benefits extend to all employees and do not require any tenure or accruement.

“One of the things we realized recently was that one of the harshest but most reliable facts of life is that at some point most of us will be confronted with the death of our partners,” Mr Bock told Forbes.

“And it’s a horrible, difficult time no matter what, and every time we went through this as a company we tried to find ways to help the surviving spouse of the Googler who’d passed away.”

The death benefits were implemented in 2011 but they have not been revealed to the public until now.

Along with 50 per cent of their partner’s salary for a decade, surviving spouses also have access to their partner’s shares in the company. If the couple have children, they will receive $1000 a month until the age of 19, or 23 if the child is a full-time student.

“When we think about [employee] needs at Google, we think less about how old you are that we do about your particular cluster of needs,” Mr Bock said.

“For someone who fits a certain profile—say, an aging parent to take care of, or kids or grandkids to support–whatever your cluster of needs are, we do our best to discern the best package of perks and programs to meet them.”

But before Aussie Google employees decide to rip up their life insurance and spend the money on a jacuzzi, it is unknown whether the benefit extends to employees south of the equator.

A spokesperson for Google Australia was unable to tell News.com.au whether the same death benefits extend to Aussie workers but said they do have “provisions in the event of the death of a Googler”.

“At Google Australia we have living benefits also,” the spokesperson said.

The benefits include things such as subsidized private health insurance for things like physio and other health and well-being care.

“We take care of our people when they’re alive also,” the spokesperson said.