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Giving always feels better than receiving. As the boss, giving your employees presents is one way of showing them that you recognize and appreciate them as a valuable part of your organization. In fact, one survey conducted by Incentive found that corporate gifts are part of the incentive programs of the companies that participated and employees are 59.7% of the recipients of gifts.
While employee gifting can be fun, it can also be quite challenging with all the cliché gifts that most employees receive. Your goal is to steer clear of that and think of something new! Here are 8 boring and undesirable gifts you have to avoid giving away this year:
Office supplies
It’s the management’s obligation to provide the employees with office supplies they can use for their daily job. So, these are the least that employees would wish to receive as a gift. Don’t give your employees office supplies, or else you might see them rolling their eyes or scratching their heads.
Plain coffee mugs
Unless you want to see your pantry turn into a houseware store, you should choose not to give your employees mass-produced, plain, and impersonal coffee mugs. Items like these can easily be personalized or customized nowadays, but they are still quite ordinary as gifts.
Beauty or hygiene products
Shower gels, moisturizers, deodorant, and other beauty and personal or hygiene products are never a good gift idea for your employees. Gifting them with these items could insinuate that they have poor personal hygiene.
Coupons
Giving your employees discount coupons as a present especially for the holidays isn’t exciting. You’ll most likely get more ‘ho-hums’ than ‘hoorays!’. Save those coupons as party or game prizes.
Stuffed animals
Okay, they are cute and cuddly (can even be good stress-busters). But you want a gift for your employees, not their kids or younger siblings, so better scratch stuffed animals off of your list.
A calendar
Calendars are a common but practical gift that companies give out to their clients. Yes, to your clients. But for your employees, you can surely think of a much better gift idea than that.
DVDs
DVDs used to be cool, but they are an extinct technology now. So, even if you are sure that your employees love watching movies, they will likely appreciate it more if they get premium subscription on Netflix.
Fruitcake
Being a traditional holiday cake doesn’t really make it a desirable and thoughtful gift. “There’s a fruitcake for everybody,” as one alternative song goes – it is considered a default holiday present. A lot of your employees probably even hate this seasonal baked good.
Avoid giving these boring and least desired gifts to your employees and make your gift giving more memorable, meaningful, and fun. Remember, employee gifting is part of employee recognition. Be sure to give your employees nice and thoughtful presents that will make them feel appreciated and valued.
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A gift check for an hour of therapeutic massage at a spa would be something that employees would like too. I know I will! 🙂
This article gives me so much idea as to what should be the perfect gift to my employees this Christmas. Now, I am just excited to buy some cool stuffs and make them surprise!