Employee benefit provides workers with funds to support small business

Waterloo Sparkling Water, an Austin-based beverage company, has debuted a new employee benefit designed to help employees support small businesses.

The benefit provides all 35 employees with a monthly $200 allowance intended to be spent with local small businesses they value. The program hopes to create a meaningful difference in the lives of struggling small business owners and their employees, as well as inspire others to act.

CEO Jason Shiver introduced this new benefit at the company after making a personal donation to the Barstool Fund, a crowd-funding site launched by Barstool Sports, which is raising money to support the small business community. Barstool Fund posts videos in which small business owners ask for help to keep their businesses going and their families and employees cared for.

“What really caught my eye was just the plight of the small business owner,” Shiver says. “Many of these people have had to keep their employees employed through [COVID] and they're doing that out of their own life savings.”

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The number of U.S. small businesses has been reduced by 29% in the past year due to theCOVID pandemic, with revenue plunging 31.9%, according to data from Opportunity Insights, a not-for-profit based at Harvard University. The U.S. unemployment rate is at 6.7%, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

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Waterloo’s benefit is given to employees through the company’s travel and expense reimbursement process — employees will be reimbursed up to $200 in eligible spending. The company is encouraging employees to support their favorite small and local businesses. The hope is the added bonus would make a meaningful difference within their employees’ communities.

“With this idea, making a lump sum donation just didn’t feel right,” Shiver says. “We wanted to do something that would also be a benefit to our employees and allow them to get active in the community and help these restaurants or other small businesses that are hurting.”

Shiver says the benefit is not only an important way to retain and attract new talent, but also reflects the values they have as a company.

“We've always thought about ways that we could just treat our employees a little bit differently, because we want them to stay here,” Shiver says. “We want to keep the camaraderie and our culture really demands that.”