For many employees, there’s nothing like a week in the mountains to spend time with their family and recharge—especially when the vacation is on the company’s tab.
For nearly half a century, Freese and Nichols, Inc., (www.freese.com) has owned a cabin in Red River, New Mexico, and made it available to employees to use for 1 week at a time at no charge. The engineering, architectural, and environmental science firm purchased its first cabin in 1960, and another one—a two-family cabin—about 10 years ago, says Jim Nichols, chairman emeritus.
A Chance to Recharge
Red River is located in the Rocky Mountains at an elevation of about 9,000 feet, making it “very cold in the winter and cool in the summer,” says Nichols. Since the first cabin is not winterized, and the temperatures can reach 25 degrees below zero, it is currently used only in the warmer months. (One winter, it was so cold inside the cabin that one employee’s family “put their food in the refrigerator to keep it from freezing,” he says.)
The firm maintains liability insurance on the cabins and pays for utilities and upkeep, hiring locals to attend to any maintenance issues, cleaning the cabins, and washing the linens and towels on a weekly basis.
Employees purchase their own food and pay the cost of getting to Red River—a 630-mile, 11-to-12-hour drive from the firm’s Fort Worth, Texas, headquarters. But employees incur no expenses for use of the cabins, says Robert F. Pence, president and CEO. “It’s the cheapest deal in town.”
Each of the firm’s 450 employees may take advantage of this benefit, and many do. The firm uses established guidelines based on seniority and the length of time since an employee last visited a cabin to divvy up available weeks, says Human Resources Manager Peggy Freeby. “If they’re flexible about when they want to go, virtually everyone that wants to go can find a time.”
“If you’re flexible, you could conceivably go up there every year,” Pence adds. Before heading off on vacation, employees are given a packet containing a key, directions, and instructions for using the cabin, he says.
Some employees have spent their honeymoon in a company-owned cabin, while others return regularly for family vacations. “It’s a very family-oriented place,” Nichols notes. With three bedrooms and a sleeper sofa, the first cabin can accommodate 10 to 12 people, and both sides of the two-family cabin have two bedrooms, accommodating 4 to 5 people each, according to Pence.
Employees spend their time hiking, horseback riding, skiing, snowmobiling, fishing, rafting, and navigating wooded trails on rented four-wheel-drive and all-terrain vehicles. The cabins are well stocked with board games and books, and employees also can read notebook entries written by other employees and their children. “That’s probably the most intriguing part of the trip,” Pence says. “There’s just a tremendous history there.”
Introduced in the early 1970s, the notebooks were originally intended to provide cabin instructions, but have since grown into a sort of journal, chronicling everything from bear sightings to tricks for operating a used Jeep that the company used to keep on the property.
Family-Oriented Culture
Offering use of the cabins is a valued employee benefit and is consistent with the firm’s culture. “It’s a great family vacation place,” says Pence. “We’re a very family-oriented company.”
“It’s really hard to portray your culture to prospective employees. You can say you’re family oriented,” but the cabins help demonstrate that, says Freeby.
This benefit also impacts loyalty and gives employees a sense of “belonging” to the firm, she adds. They see other employees’ families while on vacation in Red River and then reconnect with them at company functions such as the annual holiday party. “It makes it harder for people to leave once they are more connected to each other.”
Things to Consider
Employers interested in offering company-owned property for employee use should consider the following advice:
- Assess your culture. “It might not be the right tool or the right benefit for every company, depending on what its culture is,” Freeby says.
- Stay committed to it. “If you’re going to do something like this, get long-term commitment for it,” says Pence. If you offer it 1 year and take it away the next, employees will feel they have lost a benefit.
- Establish and follow written guidelines. Decide in advance what criteria will be used to allocate use of the property and how potential conflicts will be addressed, Freeby recommends. Having fair guidelines in place—and following them—will help avoid accusations of favoritism.