Florida company offering new homes as worker incentives

A Florida-based air conditioning and plumbing company is offering its employees a chance to win a new home as a worker incentive, The Orlando Sentinel reported. 

Mechanical One president and CEO Jason James told the newspaper that he plans to hold the drawing for two new homes in December 2022. 

To qualify for the drawings, employees must be with the company for a full year and take a financial literacy class, as well as perform 20 hours of community service at a nonprofit organization of their choice, according to The Sentinel. 

“My passion is really trying to reinvent employee appreciation,” James said. “Our business model is really, if we take care of our people, they are going to do more for us than any marketing budget.”

Mechanical One has purchased two lots for the three-bedroom, two-bath homes and has set aside a $500,000 budget for the project. 

“Many of our employees own a home already, but a lot of them rent,” James added. 

Many companies have been struggling to find new employees since the “great resignation” spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fast-food restaurants have offered signing bonuses and corporations and companies such as Amazon, Chipotle and Costco raised their minimum wage to $15 an hour or more, according to The Associated Press. 

Mechanical One’s Central Florida plumbing operations manager Anthony Mitchell said excitement for the drawing is already high.

“There’s nothing like coming home to the wife and saying, ‘Honey, I’m bringing home a new house,’” he said, per the Sentinel.