The PERKS convention offers HR experts and others a chance to take a look at some of what's successful in crafting today’s workforce and brainstorm about ways to advance employee experiences in the years ahead.

As “the only event in the U.S. dedicated to service and amenity discovery for your workplace” – PERKS has been a major draw for several years. This year, it’s set for May 9 at the Hynes Center in downtown Boston.

All of it is to help drive innovation in the workplace.

“We’re basically a discovery engine for HR departments,” Alexa Baggio told HRDailyWire on Feb. 28. As a leader at 2020 On-Site, Baggio helped start the event, which she described as promoting “anything and everything the benefits the employee.”

Some of that “anything and everything” includes the more prosaic aspects of workplace enhancement, like health benefits optimization. Other items are more "exotic" to HR, like nutritional counseling and on-site massage. There’s also a major focus on financial wellness, something that Baggio said is “super-hot right now.”

Another major trend, she said, is the move toward more vibrant employee input. Describing what she’s seeing in today’s workplace, Baggio said there’s a big uptick in demand for employee engagement and feedback into the decisions that companies make.

In addition, Baggio described another major element of what PERKS helps to facilitate, which doesn’t explicitly cost firms money. Health care transparency, she said, saves dollars for both companies and benefits holders.

In general, she said, a move toward quality is using new models to generate more benefits with less cost.

“People are finding ways to use the one-to-many relationship,” she said, adding that new forms of communication can reduce all sorts of burdens on the worker and his or her employer. “It’s a B to B to C market,” she said, explaining the role of third parties in helping forms to offer services that they would not have found on their own.