Employees are a vital component of a successful business. They handle menial, day-to-day tasks, and harder, skillful work—such as maintaining crucial databases, strengthening customer relations, and analyzing the industry’s current trends.
When employees feel valued for their contributions, employee engagement skyrockets, productivity increases, and company loyalty improves dramatically.
There's a multitude of ways you can make your employees feel appreciated, verbal affirmation being one—and thoughtful, personalized gift-giving being another.
Read on to discover the benefits of giving personalized gifts to employees, and why being proactive in acknowledging your employees' hard work and accomplishments can help your company flourish.
How To Pick the Perfect Gift
The ideal gift is heavily dependent on factors such as the company's budget, practicality, and your employee's personal preferences. Understanding the options you have for employee gifts and the personality of the person you're shopping for helps tremendously.
Understand Your Employees
It's the simple things that matter most.
What's your employee's name? What's their job title? Have they expressed their personal gift preferences, or mentioned wanting something practical, like a calendar, paperweight, or other supplies for their desk?
You want your gift to be functional, something your employee can proudly display or use. There's little point to a present that sits around, unused and gathering dust.
Know Your Options
Some presents are appropriate for gifting friends and family members, such as socks, video games, or brand-new kitchen appliances. But if you were to give these things to an employee, chances are, you'd get odd stares.
Gifts for employees can include desk accessories—clocks, potted succulents, mousepads, phone stands, and customized awards or plaques, for instance. Alternatively, send them home with something. Tote bags, keychains, company-branded apparel, and drinkware are both thoughtful and appropriate gifts.
A good rule of thumb is to keep your selections simple. Items that anyone can appreciate, no matter their age, gender, or occupation, are the safest choice.
The Benefits of Personalized Gifts
There's more than one benefit to surprising your employees with personalized gifts. By showing appreciation for you employees' efforts, you can motivate them, strengthen bonds in the workplace, and boost your staff's overall work satisfaction. Here's how:
Motivates Your Employees
It's not unusual for employees to experience burnout. If your company's been busy, help your employees cope with stress and feelings of being overwhelmed.
Encourage them to openly share their feelings. The more you know, the better you can help. What’s troubling them? Is it their workload? A difficult client? A tough project?
Verbal encouragement is a good way to make them feel motivated and engaged, but so are physical, personalized gifts. They show you value your employee's dedication, creativity, and hard work.
If your employees are feeling overwhelmed by their current workload, rattled by recent criticism, or otherwise disheartened, a small pick-me-up can do wonders on improving their mood.
Honors Milestones
There are plenty of milestones to celebrate, such as an employee's tenth year at the company, an impressive achievement, or an upcoming promotion.
Celebrate your employee's achievements with an engraved plaque, a trophy, or an achievement award.
You don't have to exclusively recognize work-related accomplishments. What about personal ones?
If you're a smaller company, get together and celebrate your employee's birthdays, graduations, weddings, new children, and more. This is a great way to show you don't just value your employees as, well, employees—you value them as friends, too.
Strengthens Bonds
Another benefit of giving personalized gifts to employees is that it strengthens bonds.
As one of the higher-ups, your employees—especially nervous, brand-new trainees—might find you intimidating.
A workplace based off fear isn't sustainable. To help your employees feel at ease and see you as more than their strict, all-powerful boss, you'll want to form strong connections with them. Over time, they'll start to see you as more than just their boss. They'll see you as a confidant, a mentor, and most importantly, a friend.
Talking with them is one of the first important steps you'll have to take. Knowing your employees' names, their position, and a minor, fun fact about them is usually enough to make them feel valued, especially if they're a part of a larger company or organization.
By giving out personalized gifts, you're showing your employees that you pay attention—not just to who they are, but what they like, whether it be candles, tote bags, mugs, or otherwise.
This can help foster feeling of trust and create a sense of connection between you and your staff.
By strengthening bonds across the workplace, you'll transform your office into a friendly, comfortable place to work—a home away from home, if you will.
Boosts Work Satisfaction
A day at the office doesn't have to be repetitive and mundane. You can spice things up with small, yet thoughtful gestures.
Hosting an in-office party, purchasing lunch, and handing out personalized gifts on special occasions, such as birthdays or the holidays, will make a memorable impression on your employees.
These thrilling occasions break the repetitiveness of day-to-day work, letting employees briefly drop their ever-growing stacks of documents and incoming phone calls for a bit of fun.
You don't have to do these things on a daily basis. Weaving non-stop breaks into your company's tightly packed schedule might be difficult, if not impossible.
By setting aside one day a month for a small, hour-long celebration, you're drastically improving work satisfaction without sacrificing too much of your employees’ work time.
By recognizing and rewarding your employees for their dedication and hard work, you’re fostering a work environment that’s friendly, enjoyable, and easy to love. When your employees are happy, so is your business: you’ll have a staff that’s loyal, hard-working, and optimistic for the future. Giving personalized gifts is a fantastic way to show your employees that you care, and that you appreciate what they’ve done for the company.
To make your employees feel valued, consider purchasing them beautiful, custom-made crystal plaques. Crystal Central has gifts for every occasion: an important milestone, a special day, or just to say thanks. We can help you find the perfect employee and boss appreciation gifts.
