Sorry Canva, the era of flashy office perks is coming to an end

A couple of weeks ago, Canva launched its new facility in Melbourne to much fanfare — a workplace with perks beyond what one might expect from a modern office. It offers teams free breakfasts and lunches, a changing room for new parents, and has converted its limited parking space into herb gardens. It’s pitched as a communal space for teams to work together, despite there being no requirements from management to come into the office.

However, its launch is contrary to the conversations being held by people and culture managers across the country. Staff expectations of what a modern workplace looks like are changing and shifting away from flashy offices and location-based ‘perks’.

While it may sound counterintuitive coming from a company called Perkbox, we’re here to say that the era of workplace ‘perks’ is nearing its end. Table-tennis tables, nap pods, baristas, and free food mean little to staff who, as a whole, are visiting the office less frequently. This is giving way to a much deeper conversation about what work actually looks like and how offices can give their team more meaningful incentives and rewards that recognise connection to purpose.

In the same month that Canva launched its new Melbourne digs, a Federal Senate Committee called for a trial of a four-day work week. It’s following in the footsteps of the UK and other parts of Europe, where both principles have been trialled and adopted by companies as part of a broader shift in workplaces.

An outcome from Australia’s trial may be years away. However, for people and culture practitioners, even the idea of a trial triggered a myriad of questions about how this interacts with Australia’s workplace laws. Will everyone take the same day off per week? Does a four-day week for five days pay mean a universal wage increase? How will this work for teams with an hourly wage as opposed to a base salary?

This is just one example of the challenges facing people and culture professionals. This could become yet another fundamental shift in how Australians work and getting ahead of it, will be the biggest challenge the human resources sector has seen in a generation. To compound matters, it coincides with the debate around equal paternal and maternal leave rights, changes to superannuation contributions, and the ongoing challenge of managing flexible work arrangements.

No amount of workplace perks will be able to compete with these benefits, yet their implementation is complex and will lead to other impacts down the line. We’ve seen this with flexible work; it has unintentionally created difficulties for companies in motivating their team. With remote working making a company’s employees less visible than ever before, managers need to be trained and equipped to recognise and reward team members who are going above and beyond.

I have no doubt that Canva’s people and culture team is across all of these issues. It’s also fair to say that at a minimum, they needed to offer its Melbourne team the same perks its Sydney office enjoys. The company has long been a leader in this sector with regard to policies for managing its people.

But this may be one of the last headline-grabbing tech office launches that we see. Instead, these players and many companies like them that are in a competitive market for talent, will be focused on rolling out longer-term benefits and recognition for their teams. The real leaders of this shift will be the ones that not only are able to deftly implement these changes but also manage and plan for the second and third-order impacts of them.

Ross McDonald is the country manager for Perkbox Australia.