[REVEALED] The Seven Best Perks You Get As A Google Employee

Google gives employees enough reasons to stick around and it sees productivity go up. Why head home when everything you need is at work? With that in mind, here's a short list of the perks Google employees get when they sign on at the Googleplex.

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James Crawford, an entrepreneur and a computer scientist, who recently left Google, writes: "Having recently left Google for a new startup, I have to agree that the most-missed perk is the food. There is simply nowhere you can go, even in a Silicon Valley city like Mountain View, that has healthy low-fat, varied choices that include features like edible fruits and vegetables. The food is even color-coded (red/yellow/green) based on how healthy it is. Outside of Google you end up having muffins for breakfast and pizza for lunch. It tastes good but it's not the same to your body."

Jeff Nelson, the guy who invented Chromebook and a former Googler, writes: "The free food probably had the largest impact on me. First, it saved an enormous amount of time to be able to leave for work without eating breakfast or planning for lunch. Second, I reached the point where I was buying very little food, just enough for a few dinners and weekend meals. The convenience of having food provided and it's effect on your habits can not be overstated."

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All the buses are equipped with Wi-Fi, so not only can employees live anywhere in San Francisco without needing a car to get to work, but they can relax, have fun, or get work done on the way there.

Katy Levinson, a former engineer at Google, really liked having showers on campus. She writes: "I love to think in the shower and frequently worked out ideas in there. The opportunity to get outside and run around if you had some energy to work off, knowing you could just shower and switch into some other clothes helped alleviate a lot of the fidgety energy I felt being pent up in a cubicle. It let me focus on work. I also felt comfortable pushing myself harder on my morning bike ride in, knowing I could shower and change when I got there."

Googlers can take up to one three-month leave of unpaid time off, under specific circumstances. Health care benefits continue for unpaid leaves of up to three months. Googlers can use their time off to work with non-profit organizations, political campaigns and other community-oriented projects they’re interested in.

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Aaron Lichtig, who currently works at Google, writes: "By far, it's the maternity/paternity leave. At Google, new dads receive six weeks of paid leave while moms can take 18 weeks after the birth of a child. Employees' stock continues to vest and they continue to receive bonuses while they are on leave."

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She further writes: "The Goog even gives us a bonus, called "baby bonding bucks" shortly after our baby is born to help with expenses like diapers, takeout, and formula during our leave. I haven't heard of other companies offering parental benefits within a country mile of Google's. Why does Google provide such generous perks to new moms and dads? It improves retention. After the new maternity leave policy was enacted the number of women leaving Google decreased by 50 percent (per the NYT)."

Russel had only great things to say about his coworkers: "The People: We are surrounded by smart, driven people who provide the best environment for learning I've ever experienced. I don't mean through tech talks and formal training programs, I mean through working with awesome colleagues - even the non-famous ones."

"The Business: We have an amazing business that keeps growing, that customers and users love, and that provides us with more job stability than almost any other company. It's not going to make any one of us rich, but the risk-reward ratio is pretty good, and sustainable."

"The Technology: We do big Computer Science (BigTable is just the tip of the iceberg). We build our own browser, mobile phone OS and online office suite. We are at the forefront of using consumer tech in the office, which makes the mundane aspects of working bearable."

Another Googler said that the company is a great place to see, listen to, and meet with people who he grew up reading about. "Never in my life have I met so many people with a Wikipedia page than in the last year!” he writes.

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"This might sound ridiculous," Chief People Officer Laszlo Bock told Meghan Casserly, Forbes Staff recently in a conversation on the ever-evolving benefits at Google, "But we've announced death benefits at Google."

"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," Bock says. "And it's a horrible, difficult time no matter what, and every time we went through this as a company we tried to find ways to help the surviving spouse of the Googler who'd passed away."

"If a Googler dies, all their stock vests immediately, and on top of the (not atypical, I think?) life insurance payout, their surviving spouse continues to get half of the Googler's salary for the next 10 years. And there's an additional $1,000/month benefit for any of the Googler's children," writes Paul Cowan, Google SRE.

"When I mentioned this benefit to my wife, she cried. She actually cried that the company would do that for her if something happened to me," Cowan said. "The best part? So far, she hasn't poisoned me! It must be love!"

What makes the death benefit notable isn't just its generosity—Google is, of course, far from cash-strapped—but rather that, unlike most employee perks on Google campuses that aim to increase happiness, creativity and productivity, providing death benefits is a no-win for the company.

"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,” Bock concedes. "When it comes down to it, it’s better to work for a company who cares about you than a company who doesn’t. And from a company standpoint, that makes it better to care than not to care."