A Complete Guide to Employee Stipends: 14 Ideas With Tips and Best Practices

Employee stipends have emerged as a solid solution for companies that want to design flexible, competitive benefits programs. Personalization is key to designing strong benefits that employees engage with, and stipends offer the ultimate level of flexibility and customization. 

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In this guide, we collected a list of stipend ideas to inspire you, along with tips and best practices for how to structure and administer your programs. Use this information to brainstorm stipend ideas that best suit your organization’s unique needs and help you compete for the brightest talent. The guide provides:

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• An overview of employee stipends and their taxability
• The benefits of offering employee stipends
• A list of stipend ideas to inspire you
• Taxability status of individual types of stipends
• Common eligible spending criteria
• Tips and best practices for designing your stipend
• 6 steps to launching an employee stipend program

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