What Should You Gift Employees This Christmas​

11:40 AM, 10 10, 2016

What Should You Gift Employees This Christmas​

It’s coming up to the time of goodwill and during the Winter holidays it’s great to give something back to those who helped make your business a success in the year.

So, what should you buy and what should the gift be?

Idea 1: Hampers / Bottle of Wine / Champagne

Hampers are nice all round gifts that are certainly impressive to receive. You could choose wine, cheese, or even chocolates. On the same token, a nice bottle of wine is also a valuable, kind gift to receive. Your issues are:

• Storage of the hampers / bottles
• Choosing the value of the hamper for each employee – typically they have higher costs due to packing and delivery
• You may be sensitive that the hamper contents are appropriate for all employees (eg alcohol, sugar, gluten) or if alcohol will be appropriate at all
• Arranging successful delivery in time, as well as the actual ‘gifting’ moment
• It can tricky to navigate a ‘higher value’ hamper for top performers without other employees seeing

Idea 2: Cash

Cash in a Christmas card is certainly a great gift to receive and will no doubt be appreciated by many of your team. Your issues are:

• Accessing large volumes of nice, crisp bank notes and cards to accompany the value
• Giving an amount that feels substantial, whilst also spending time divvying money – perhaps if you want to give more to top employees
• Cash is used quickly – for example, on a quick round of drinks and the ‘feel good factor’ is short-lived. Unlike a Gift Card or a hamper it probably doesn’t make it back for ‘family’ or home use.
• You will need to accompany the card with a handwritten note of thanks – this could be a large task depending on your company size.

Idea 3: A Gift Card or a Preference Code

We believe that a Gift Card is the ideal way to say thank you for companies with many employees. Gift Cards are actually requested as the ideal holiday gift by employees, with the reasoning that unlike cash, gift cards are assigned as ‘a treat’ and must be spent on something worthwhile. A Preference code might be an ideal option. Here’s why.

• Unlike purchasing gift cards and selecting the retailer you think people may like, ordering an SVM Global Preference code allows you to gift a code via email with a balance
• Employees can choose which retailers they would like a gift card for, and they can purchase anytime, even adding more to the balance.
• You can add more value to the balance of high performers – like cash, this sort of reward is usually kept confidential.
• SVM Global can accept a spreadsheet of names and values – so you’re less likely to forget someone. Human memory can be unreliable and missing someone out could be devastating.
• Delivering digitally also means less admin for you

We hope this has give you some food for thought on the types of gifts you could offer this Christmas!