If you build this ukulele, you will stay

Companies have long introduced workplace perks such as lunch treats and parties as a way to attract and retain talent, and the pandemic has prompted employers to get even more creative.

Case in point: an online ukulele-building class.

Virtual cocktail functions and online pizza parties no longer work to enhance company perks, especially in the technology space where competition for employees is tough, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.

Biotech firm Arrakis Therapeutics CEO, Michael Gilman, told the newspaper that the company “ran out of things” to engage workers who were sent home to telecommute in March. The solution was to hire a professional bartender to lead a virtual cocktail-making class and to have the ingredients shipped out to homes in advance, he said.

As for the ukulele class, that was the brainchild of biotech firm Nimbus Therapeutics.

“Yay, let’s do this, people!” urged its director of executive operations, in front of her Zoom screen, over a glass of sauvignon blanc and with one of the ukulele kits that arrived at employees’ homes days prior, according to the Journal’s account.