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Google Offers ... Really Generous Death Benefits

Googlers get one final perk

By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff

Posted Aug 9, 2012 5:30 AM CDT

(Newser) – Google is famous for its generosity to employees, but Forbes has found a perk that Googlers get after they depart the company—and this life. If any of Google's 34,000 or so workers die while employed by the company, their surviving partner will receive half their salary every year for the next decade. All stocks will be vested immediately and children of dearly departed Googlers will receive $1,000 a year until they are 19, or 23 if they are in full-time education.

The death benefits, introduced last year, apply to all Google employees, no matter when they joined the company. Google can afford to be generous, but what makes the death benefits stand out among the company's many perks is the fact that it will do nothing to increase worker productivity or creativity unless they start clocking in from the afterlife, Forbes notes. "Obviously there’s no benefit to Google," says Google's chief people officer. “But it turns out that the reason we’re doing these things for employees is not because it’s important to the business, but simply because it’s the right thing to do."

Google employee benefits don't end at the grave.
Google employee benefits don't end at the grave.   (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)
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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. - Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock

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COMMENTS
Showing 3 of 14 comments
Minidoka
Aug 9, 2012 7:52 PM CDT
In 20 years or so when Google is tanking they will blame the unreasonable perks of their workers. A trend i have noticed. When a company is doing good the top people claim it is all because of their intelligence and hard work. When the company goes bad they blame the workers. 
LoginsSuck
Aug 9, 2012 10:40 AM CDT
.......thud (logins falls over)
Diapercake
Aug 9, 2012 8:42 AM CDT
this is greed in the form of fake niceness.. they will use this to remove employees and the payoffs will be their cover to the wife and police who will overlook them and not know what is going on.  now on the immediate inside it looks nice, but we have all seen the minority report.
 

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