Meaning & use
soft benefits
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Meanings
nounpluralbusiness
Rewards from a job that are not money, such as flexible hours, training, or a pleasant office.
Grammar: Used as a plural noun; it takes a plural verb: soft benefits are important.
Patterns
- offer soft benefits
- soft benefits such as something
- a package of soft benefits
The company offers soft benefits like remote work and free language classes.
Younger workers often care more about soft benefits than about a slightly higher salary.
Soft benefits such as gym access can make a job much more attractive.
nounpluralbusiness
Advantages that are hard to measure, such as a better reputation or happier staff.
Grammar: Plural and usually countable in this sense; often contrasted with hard, measurable results.
Patterns
- the soft benefits of something
- bring soft benefits
Sponsoring the local team brought soft benefits that never showed up in the accounts.
Managers sometimes ignore the soft benefits of training because they cannot measure them easily.
Common combinations
- offer soft benefits
- Many start-ups offer soft benefits to compete with big firms.
- a package of soft benefits
- The job came with a package of soft benefits, including paid volunteering days.
- soft benefits such as flexible hours
- Soft benefits such as flexible hours matter to parents.
- hard and soft benefits
- The report separates hard and soft benefits of the merger.
Synonyms and how they differ
- perks
- More informal and can include both money-related extras and non-cash rewards, while soft benefits usually means only the non-cash kind.
- fringe benefits
- A formal term for extra rewards of a job; it often includes things like health insurance, which are not always 'soft'.
Word family
- benefit noun
- A helpful or good effect, or money paid by a system such as insurance.
- beneficial adjective
- Having a good or helpful effect.
Commonly confused: soft benefits or hard benefits?
soft benefits vs hard benefits
Hard benefits are concrete and easy to measure, such as salary or a cash bonus; soft benefits are the less measurable extras.
Practice
Which sentence uses 'soft benefits' correctly?
Choose one answer.
'Soft benefits' are non-cash job rewards such as flexible hours, so option 1 fits. Option 0 confuses them with cash pay, and options 2 and 3 use the phrase with unrelated meanings.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “soft benefits”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.