Key insights
- 88.3% of employees at Australia’s Best Workplaces 2026 say they have special and unique benefits.
- Great Place To Work analysed 140,251 Australian survey responses to identify what predicts intent to stay.
- Mantel’s My Deal lets each employee choose annual support ranging from IVF to solar panels.
At Mantel, a leading technology and AI consultancy, a team member’s benefits for the year might cover IVF. A colleague takes solar panels and someone else picks a conference ticket, a Mac Mini or an electric vehicle.
Mantel may have an unusually broad menu, but the principle behind it is becoming more common at Australia’s best workplaces. One-size-fits-all benefits are giving way to support people can shape around the realities of their lives.
For decades, workplace benefits were designed around a narrower picture of the employee: one person with a fairly predictable career path, standard hours and not a lot of caring, financial or health responsibilities competing for their attention. In 2026 that employee is almost entirely extinct.
The strongest workplaces are responding by giving people more say over how their benefits budget is spent. At Australia’s Best Workplaces 2026, 88.3% of employees say they receive special and unique benefits, compared with 45.0% at a typical Australian workplace.
Mantel, a technology and AI consultancy, calls its approach My Deal. Each year, team members sit down with their leader and the People & Culture team to agree on support that reflects both their circumstances and their work goals.
“My Deal is an annual, collaborative conversation between each team member, their leader and our P&C team intended to align individual motivations with business objectives.”
Caitlin Ball · People & Culture Specialist, Mantel
The menu runs across three pillars, Work & Community, Family, Wellbeing & Sustainability, and Life. Team members choose support running from IVF and fertility preservation to energy-efficient home upgrades, conference tickets and AI tools. It might be the only benefits list in Australia where fertility treatment and a desktop computer appear on the same page.
The annual reset stops it calcifying into a perks catalogue. “What makes My Deal so impactful is how deeply individualised it is and how it changes every year to reflect the priorities of our team,” Ball says. Seven years in, she says My Deal “fosters deep loyalty and engagement through truly individualised care”.
Why doesn’t a standard benefits package work anymore?
Because most employee benefits plans were designed around an average employee who never existed. Sandoz Australia & New Zealand makes the point directly. “We recognise that every associate’s needs are different, so rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach, we provide the flexibility and autonomy for people to work in a way that enables them to perform at their best,” said Communications Lead & Executive Assistant to General Manager, Kira Boss.
Its answer is a spread of gender-neutral parental leave, Leave with Purpose for cultural celebrations and volunteering, Gift of Time between Christmas and New Year, and Summer Flex, which condenses work fortnights over summer. A parent, a recent arrival and someone with no caring responsibilities each take something different from that list.
What do modern workplace benefits cover?
Learning is where the shift is sharpest. Braze, a buzzy customer engagement platform, gives full-time employees up to $3,750 a year through its Global Learning Stipend, with no approved-supplier list. “We deliberately skip the ‘company-approved’ catalogue, because we trust our people to know what they need,” the company says. Construction powerhouse McNab invests around $1,300 per employee a year in training, more than 2.5 times the $458 industry benchmark it cites.
| Category | Who offers it | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Family and fertility | Mantel, Sandoz | IVF and fertility preservation; gender-neutral parental leave |
| Recovery time | Bright People, RedPandas Digital, Omni Group | Me Days, wellbeing leave with no form, five extra wellbeing days a year |
| Household costs | Mantel | Solar panels and electric vehicles |
| Self-directed learning | Braze, Visagio, McNab | An open stipend, an internal university, funded trades and degrees |
| Everyday connection | Verkada, Spaceful | Funded meals with colleagues; quarterly cross-office offsites |
| Extended time out | Hilton | Thrive Sabbatical and Thrive Reset, paid leave plus funding |
Some cost very little. Verkada’s 3-3-3 program reimburses employees $30 for food or drinks with three or more colleagues after 3pm, with no pre-approval, and employees worldwide used it nearly 2,700 times in 2025. At A1 Technologies, a fully remote team, the Kaizen Awards recognise small process fixes. “It works because it is not reserved for big wins or senior people,” the company says, and more than 30% of its service desk have moved into senior roles.
Do personalised workplace benefits improve retention?
Yes, and the Australian sample is unusually large. Great Place To Work analysed 140,251 survey responses from 682 Australian organisations across its 2025 and 2026 datasets to find which parts of workplace experience predict whether someone stays.
Great Place To Work benchmark data shows 91.7% of employees at Australia’s Best Workplaces 2026 agree they want to work there for a long time, against 83.6% across all Certified organisations and 56.3% at a typical Australian workplace.
The analysis also named the statements that best predict it. Within the Respect theme, the strongest were “Management shows a sincere interest in me as a person, not just an employee” and “This is a psychologically and emotionally healthy place to work”. Across the full survey, “People look forward to coming to work here” was the strongest predictor of employees very likely to stay, and 64% of those who strongly agreed were also very likely to stay.
Should employees have to ask for their benefits?
The asking is where most packages lose the people they were written for. Leah Cioccio, Strategy Director at Equality Media + Marketing, built around that problem.
“When flexibility is something you have to negotiate, the people who need it most quietly pay a penalty for asking, and it’s usually carers, parents and anyone whose life is complicated. When it’s universal, the playing field is genuinely level, and inclusion becomes part of the operating model instead of a line on the values poster.”
Leah Cioccio · Strategy Director, Equality Media + Marketing
Equality Time, the agency’s four-day, 32-hour week at full pay, has run since 2022 and applies to everyone. Cioccio calls it “a redesign rather than a bolt-on”. “We rebuilt our workflows, client rhythms and expectations around four days, and within the first six months, time spent in meetings dropped by 68% while active task completion actually went up,” she says. “We’ve held our profit targets, our people have stayed.”
“Me Days give our team dedicated time to recharge in whatever way they need, recognising that wellbeing looks different for everyone. They work because they’re built on trust, not policy.”
Monique Purcell · General Manager, Bright People
RedPandas Digital lands in the same place, offering wellbeing leave “given just because – no justification or form required, just trust that people know when they need it”.
Personalised workplace benefits: frequently asked questions
What are personalised workplace benefits?
Personalised workplace benefits are chosen by the employee and revisited as their circumstances change. Mantel’s My Deal is an Australian example, aligning individual motivations with business objectives through an annual conversation. The retention link shows in the benchmarks: Great Place To Work data shows 88.3% of employees at Australia’s Best Workplaces 2026 agree they have special and unique benefits, against 45.0% at a typical Australian workplace.
What benefits do Australian employees want in 2026?
The ones that solve a problem they have this year. Across Australia’s Best Workplaces that means fertility support, parental leave, no-questions wellbeing leave, learning budgets, household energy upgrades and paid sabbaticals. Mantel covers IVF and solar panels under one program, Sandoz offers Leave with Purpose and Summer Flex, and Braze funds external learning with no approved-supplier list. The common thread is choice.
What is Mantel’s My Deal program?
My Deal is Mantel’s annual, collaborative conversation between each team member, their leader and the People & Culture team, built to align individual motivations with business objectives. It runs across three pillars: Work & Community, Family, Wellbeing & Sustainability, and Life. Team members choose support ranging from IVF and fertility preservation to solar panels, conference tickets and AI tools. It has run for seven years and changes with the team’s priorities.
Do employee benefits improve retention?
Great Place To Work analysed 140,251 survey responses from 682 Australian organisations and found the statements that best predict intent to stay are about how a person is treated. Within the Respect theme, “Management shows a sincere interest in me as a person, not just an employee” was among the strongest predictors. Benefits that demonstrate that interest carry weight. Identical packages demonstrate very little about anyone.
