Creative Benefits That Can Help Retain Employees

Keeping top talent is a challenge for every retailer. In 2025, 27.4% of full-time sales associates left within their first 30 days, according to the NACS Talent Insights Dashboard, with over 1 in 3 full-time sales associates leaving within their first 90 days.

In addition to the standard suite of employee benefits, perks can help keep staff engaged and improve retention—and even inexpensive ones can go a long way.

Here are some examples that retailers are offering:

• Fuel discounts. “This is a benefit that has a perceived value that greatly exceeds its actual cost and is something that employees want and request. It has a big impact,” said Annie Gauthier, CFO and Co-CEO at St. Romain Oil Company and 2025-2026 NACS Chair in the August 2025 issue of NACS Magazine article “Fuel Your Frontline Workforce.”
• Paid time off for community engagement and volunteer opportunities. “That’s really one of our hallmark benefits that employees love to take advantage of,” said Lorissa Martin, manager of talent acquisition and performance at the Wills Group.
• Employee referral bonuses. Retailers said these are a great way to not only find quality applicants, but also keep your current staff satisfied. Dash In offers a tier system for referral rewards, ranging from $250 to $1,000 depending on the role. “It’s a significant incentive for people to want to refer people. It’s been a way we have continued to elevate our talent and increase our retention. You want to work where you have people that you enjoy working with,” said Martin.
• Education assistance or tuition reimbursements. Dash In’s GED Works program helps employees get their high school diploma. “We don’t want to pass up good talent just because they may not have their high school diploma, and it was very limiting for internal mobility. Meeting them where they are and offering them the GED Works program has been really beneficial for us,” said Martin. “And it shows employees we appreciate them and want to invest in their education, which makes them want to stay at the company.” According to the NACS Talent Insights Dashboard, 45% of surveyed companies offer this to their store employees. 
• Tiger Fuel offers a $10 meal voucher per shift. The company also takes the year’s top-performing store manager by sales to the NACS Show each year.
• Health center. In addition to its standard medical insurance, Tiger Fuel also has an employee health center for employees and household members. Starting at $6 per month, employees can book same-day appointments and see practitioners on site.

If you want to know what benefits and perks employees actually want, ask them. Tiger Fuel does a quarterly engagement survey plus an annual benefits survey. “We have found that the most effective benefits package is the one that employees ask for,” said Shaleena Arreguin, HR director for Tiger Fuel.

The NACS Talent Insights Dashboard enables leaders to benchmark against retail operators like them by role, company size and store context to make labor and business decisions based on relevant peer data. Using the Dashboard enables HR and operations leaders to develop defensible HR strategies and proposals to their executive leaders.