The holiday season is upon us and that means it’s time to start thinking about gift giving. They say it is better to give than to receive, but that doesn’t mean it’s easier. Choosing the right gift for a family or friend is hard. Choosing the right gift for your employees seems downright impossible. Good gifts are personal. But, when you are buying for a group of very different people it makes choosing personal gifts difficult. Here are 9 tips on choosing gifts your employees will love.
1. Don’t give them your product
It seems easy to provide your employees with products from your store, but don’t do it. They work with your products all day long. And, chances are good that you are providing them a discount at your place of business already. If you aren’t, that’s a different topic for an article on another day. Choose something that is unrelated from their everyday job.
2. Don’t give them things like trinkets
More and more people are starting to want to simplify life. They don’t want one more item that they need to find a place for in their house. And, most kitchens are overflowing with coffee cups, even in houses that don’t drink tea or coffee. Paperweights, fancy room thermometers, coffee cups, and anything that says the name of your company on it should be off the table for holiday gifts.
3. People love food
Employees appreciate food. It’s something they need and you can use your gift giving opportunity to provide them with something they may not usually choose for themselves, like steak. Some companies choose to provide all employees with a “Christmas ham” or turkey at the holidays. Be creative, not cheap. And, make sure you know your employees. Do not risk offending your employees by providing them with something that they do not eat for religious reasons or personal choice, such as vegans.
4. Let people pick their own gift
Let’s be honest, most employees aren’t expecting you to know their personal preferences. So, use this to your advantage and gift something like an Amazon gift card to everyone. This way your employees can choose their own gift. You can customize the amount of the card based on the position of the employee. For example, you managers would deserve a higher amount than your part-time employees because they have a lot more responsibility within the company.
5. Gift baskets
There is something about a beautiful gift basket full of goodies that is pleasing to the eye. Put together gift baskets, or purchase them, full of treats and fruits. If your store sells items along these lines you can add in some of the favorites.
6. Paid time off
People love time off of work so for a gift you can provide them with a paid day off. They can choose to use the day anyway that they like. If you provide this as a gift though you need to set some ground rules beforehand to know how to handle the scheduling of it. You don’t want everyone trying to use their time on the same day.
7. Dinner and a movie gift cards
Let you employee treat their spouse or a friend to a night of dinner and a movie. Choose a nice restaurant and make sure both places are located nearby. No one likes to receive gift cards that they can’t use close to home.
8. Books
If you enjoy reading books you can use your love of books to choose gifts for your employees. The trick here is to choose a book that is personalized to each person and what they are interested in. Do not give books that are business and sales related unless you know that person is extremely interested in the topic.
9. Cold hard cash
There is no way around it, people like cash.
Quick recap
The basic things you need to remember is when choosing gifts for your employees make it about them and not about you. This is one reason employees hate getting gifts with your logo on it so much. Use this as an opportunity to connect with your employees outside of what your business creates. As you choose the gift think about how much you appreciate your employees that are working to grow your business.
