Millions of Australian workers are preparing to quit their jobs in the upcoming months. To try and entice workers from quitting, employers are making an effort to offer a number of incentives to try and convince their workers to stay.

One Australian organisation offer $6,000 to all of their 200 employees to spend on anything they want in order to prevent a mass exodus of employees as the Great Resignation looms in Australia.

The Great Resignation has been occurring in America with everyone from frontline workers to senior executives quitting their jobs as people seek out flexibility, work that aligns with their values and companies that treat them as humans.

Linktree is a social media start-up that has the backing of billionaire Afterpay co-founder Nick Molnar, is offering an annual $6000 reward for staff to spend across four pillars, including wellness, personal growth, lifestyle and impact.

Linktree is working in a fiercely competitive space for employees with a crippling shortage in the industry, as Deloitte Access Economics estimates Australia will need to upskill an extra 200,000 tech workers over the next few years.

A Linktree employee named Hannah has said that she is very impressed with the rewards program and she describes the $6,000 incentive as a “pay rise but with more intention”.

She plans to spend the money on personal growth courses that will help her with her wellbeing and also spend the money on a gym membership and massages.

She is also planning to spend the money to help the environment. “I have always wanted to get solar power for the house and I will use some of this to go towards powering it. It’s a big investment but the rewards program is giving me the opportunity to do it sooner,” says Hannah.

Hannah says it is the best employee incentive she has ever heard of and ever received from an employer.

“It definitely highlights how much that Linktree actually cares about its employees mental and physical health, both in and outside of work. One of the pillars that we could select to spend benefits on was priorities outside of work like cleaning, which I thought was really cool as people’s priorities are really different, and there’s the flexibility there,” says Hannah.

Defying the ordinary was one of the core values of Linktree, said its head of people operations Emily Moore, and implementing the rewards program was a fantastic feeling for employees after a tough few years with Covid.

“Right now many people are re-evaluating what is really important to them and making changes in their lives they may have been putting off prior to the pandemic. We want our employees to be able to bring their best ‘whole selves’ to work and truly believe in creating policies and initiatives that enable them to achieve just that,” says Emily Moore.

Other employers have been scrambling to offer their employees some major perks to stand out from the crowd and entice newcomers or keep current employees.

Some of the incentives range from heartbreak leave, time off for cultural celebrations, free cooking classes, shares in the company and more time out when having a child.

Fintech company Finder introduced five days paid leave for life’s big events on top of its annual and sick leave entitlements.

The $56 billion Aussie design company Canva introduced a vibe and thrive allowance for all workers, which can be spent on everything from gym memberships, home office set ups, social celebrations, wellbeing and education.

Financial technology company, Iress, has introduced more leave for staff, who will be able to take up to six long weekends each year, with no impact on their current annual leave balance or pay.