Holiday Program Best Practices: How to Give the Best Employee Gifts

The end of the year is just around the corner—can you believe 2024 is already almost over? Time flies, right?

With Q4 upon us, most HR teams turn their eyes to one thing: end-of-year holiday programs. These programs can include all sorts of things, like:

• Holiday celebrations
• Fancy dinners
• Gifts for employees
• Team activities
• Bonuses
• And more!

It’s tradition to end the year with a bang, and so many companies pull out the stops to make their holiday celebrations special. But with the work landscape going through so many changes in recent years, and employee expectations for the workplace evolving, it can be hard to stick the landing for holiday programs.

In this post, we’ll do a deep-dive into one aspect of holiday programs: holiday gifts for employees. We’ll go over everything you need to know to offer good gifts for employees that will satisfy each of your people, regardless of budget, employee demographic, work location, etc.

So get your scissors ready—let’s start unwrapping the secrets of employee gifts!

Why Should You Give Employees Gifts?

Gifts have been an important part of our culture for generations. They express appreciation, strengthen relationships, and offer symbolic communication that shows employees they’re valued and cared for.

Psychological (and Other) Benefits of Employee Gifts

Our brains are hardwired to love both giving and receiving gifts. It releases oxytocin, a chemical that makes you feel the warm fuzzies and helps you feel closer to others. Oxytocin also increases serotonin and dopamine levels, which increase feelings of happiness, contentment, and focus.

In a nutshell, employee gifts strengthen loyalty to the company, increase employee happiness, and show employees that they’re valued, appreciated, and supported. These feelings lead to:

• 31% lower turnover
• 14% higher performance
• 13% greater productivity

And consider this: the single biggest driver of employee engagement is whether the employees feel like their managers and leaders genuinely care about them. Thoughtful gifts can accomplish that, leading to 4X greater engagement, 23% higher profitability, and 81% lower absenteeism.

Giving meaningful, thoughtful gifts is the key to unlocking an engaged, productive, and happy workforce for the rest of the year. That’s why you should care about the gifts you give to employees this holiday season.

What Makes a Good Employee Gift?

This one’s easy—a gift that feels personal, meaningful, and desired by the recipient is a good gift. The price tag, size, and content of the gift is mostly irrelevant. It’s all about how the gift makes the employees feel.

Consider gifts you’ve received yourself. Which ones can you even remember? Probably the ones that you knew came from a place of love and thoughtfulness, where you could tell the giver thought about you and your likes, interests, and personality. Well, employee holiday gifts are no different.

Here’s the kicker, though: 84% of employees say they’ve received gifts from their company that they don’t want or care for. To avoid that, keep these gift-giving strategies in mind:

• Personalized. The gift is in some way personalized to the recipient. This can be through a handwritten note or a unique item.
• Meaningful. The gift isn’t some cookie-cutter throwaway—it means something to the recipient.
• Thoughtful. The recipient should know that they were thought of when the company chose their gift.

Gift Cards vs Physical Items vs Digital Rewards

You may think that gift cards are the way to go—they’re easy, budget-friendly, and give employees some freedom to choose how/when they spend them. However, 79% of employees say gift cards are less meaningful than physical gifts, and 86% say they’ve lost or forgotten about gift cards they’ve been given.

Best Practices for Giving Gift Cards

• Don’t give out the same few gift cards to every employee. Instead, give out as many unique cards as needed to ensure each employee gets one to a place they enjoy.
• Put enough on the cards. A end-of-year gift of a $10 gift card won’t feel very meaningful. The cards don’t have to be hugely expensive, but make them impactful.
• Include a personal touch. A handwritten note from each employee’s manager is the perfect way to make gift cards a little more meaningful.

If you don’t want to give gift cards, physical items are a great option. However, there are some dangers when giving these as well. For example, branded items, unwanted items, or gag gifts will all do more harm than good. And finding the right gifts for dozens, hundreds, or thousands of employees can be an insurmountable challenge.

Best Practices for Giving Physical Items

• Customize items based on employee preference. Learn what each employee enjoys and give them items based on their interests, wants, or needs.
• Avoid branded items. Swag can be tempting to give out, but employees don’t appreciate it. Holiday gifts should be about THEM, not the company.
• Don’t give out gag gifts. While some employees may appreciate a joke gift, many others will feel cheated or undervalued. Save gag gifts for April Fool’s Day.

What about digital gifts? Digital rewards, like points on the Awardco platform, are gifts that allow employees to buy themselves whatever they want for the holidays. These give employees unparalleled choice, but some may fear these gifts lack the personal touch (though 77% of employees say they’d rather choose their own gift than have their company pick one).

Best Practices for Giving Digital Rewards

• Personalize the gift. Once again, personalized messages of appreciation from leaders is a great way to make digital rewards more meaningful.
• Maximize the freedom of choice. Some digital rewards may come with a limited catalog of reward options to choose from. If possible, eliminate restrictions and allow employees to spend their points on anything they want.

The point of this post isn’t to tell you exactly what to give your employees. That’s for you to find out. Sometimes gift cards will work great, other times a physical item wrapped neatly in paper is best. And digital rewards can be effective, too. These strategies will help you maximize each of these gift options, whatever you decide.

Examples of Good Employee Gift Ideas

As we’ve mentioned before, employee gifts should be customized and personalized to each employee. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t get some inspiration for your gifting adventures from a guide like this!

Employee Gifts That Are Free

As mentioned above, employee gifts do not have to be expensive to be meaningful and impactful. In fact, many free employee gift ideas exist that can make your holiday program a smashing success.

• Handwritten, personalized notes from managers or leaders
• An extra day or two of PTO
• Professional development opportunities
• Help from leadership with a project

Employee Gifts Under $50

If you have a small budget for employee gifts, this list is for you. We’ll break it down into a few categories to really help you nail down the right gifts for each of your employees.

Gifts for Cinephiles

• Ticket Stub Diary ($17)
• IMDb Top 100 Movies Scratch-Off Poster ($15)
• Gourmet Popcorn Set ($22)

Gifts for Outdoor Adventurers

• National Geographic Atlas of the National Parks ($41)
• Camping lantern ($15) 
• Travel Hammock ($30)

Gifts for Fitness Fanatics

• Resistance Bands ($10)
• Phone Holder ($11)
• Pickleball Set ($30)

Gifts for Homebodies

• Premium Oil Diffuser ($21)
• Reading Pillow ($40)
• Book of the Month Subscription ($18)

Gifts for Techies

• Waterproof Portable Speaker ($40)
• Anker Power Bank ($20)
• Laptop Cleaning Set ($12)

Employee Gifts Between $51 and $100

Have a little more to spend but still need to keep it manageable? Check out these moderately-priced gifts for the same groups of employees.

Gifts for Cinephiles

• Eat What You Watch Cookbook ($55)
• The Art of Mondo ($56)
• Director’s Chair ($60)

Gifts for Outdoor Adventurers

• Coleman Tent ($60)
• Smokeless Portable Fire Pit ($100)
• CamelBak Hydration Backpack ($65)

Gifts for Fitness Fanatics

• Fitbit Fitness Tracker ($99)
• Brooks Running Shoes ($60)
• Complete Yoga Beginner Set ($85)

Gifts for Homebodies

• Heated Blanket ($75)
• Pandemic: Legacy Board Game ($70)
• nutribullet Personal Blender ($58)

Gifts for Techies

• Google Nest Wifi System ($82)
• Amazon Kindle ($100)
• Indoor Herb Garden ($100)

Employee Gifts Over $100

Do you have the budget to splurge on your employees this year? These expensive gift ideas will really knock their socks off.

Gifts for Cinephiles

• Home projector ($300)
• Bose Sound Bar ($200)
• Sony Bluray Player ($199)

Gifts for Outdoor Adventurers

• Yeti Cooler ($300)
• Garmin Outdoor Smartwatch ($267)
• Luggage Set ($293)

Gifts for Fitness Fanatics

• Adjustable Dumbbells ($429)
• 3-in-1 Walking Treadmill ($179)
• Theragun Massage Gun ($150)

Gifts for Homebodies

• Bread Maker Machine ($130)
• Nintendo Switch ($300)
• Ninja Creami Ice Cream Maker ($200)

Gifts for Techies

• Logitech Ergonomic Keyboard ($130)
• Apple Airpods Pro ($190)
• reMarkable Digital Tablet ($600)

Remember! This list is just supposed to give you some ideas to get started. Talk to your employees, find out what they like, and then go from there.

Pro tip: You can find every single one of these items on the Awardco platform through our partnership with Amazon!

Can You Ask What Employees Want?

Sometimes, it’s easiest to ask what the recipient of your gift wants, and for employee gifts, we actually encourage this! Yes, asking may take away some of the surprise factor, but that’s far better than taking a random guess and ending up with a gift no one wants.

To best figure out what your people want, send out a survey. Maintain a level of gifting surprise by calling it a “Get to Know You” survey instead of a “Tell Me Exactly What You Want for Christmas” survey. Here are some questions you can ask:

• What’s your favorite color? 
• What’s your favorite restaurant?
• What’s your favorite book series, movie, or tv show?
• What hobby are you really into right now?
• Do you follow any sports teams, and if so, which ones?
• What’s your go-to date idea?
• Would you rather spend a free day at home or out doing things?
• Do you prefer splurging on physical items or in-person experiences?
• Which interests would you say best explain who you are?

The info you gather here will allow you to come up with personalized gifts for years to come!

Give Great Gifts This Year

This holiday season, give your employees gifts that they’ll love, no matter where they work, what their interests are, or what your budget is. Through this gifting guide, and the other posts in our Holiday Program Best Practices series, we hope you’ll be able to make this year’s celebrations some to remember.