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Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

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Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#201

Post by Someone1234 »

lupire wrote: post #189

Conclusion: People don't want cheap gifts, and companies aren't going to spend money on expensive gifts.

When considering the cost of recruitment, training, and negative productivity associated with low morale it is mind-boggling that companies paying $60-100K+ for employees cannot or will not find 1% of that employee's total to keep them happy once a year.

To be honest a lot of the things company do don't even seem like profit maximization (since a Christmas gift could easily be argued that way), they just feel like constant short term thinking, medium to long term be damned. They know this is worse for them eventually, but yet they do it anyway since that 1% saved today across the whole company might be a big number.

A lot of it all comes back to poor management training and how they spend too much time maximizing the balance sheet rather than maximizing the workplace itself. Same reason why IT pros spent years trying to get two monitors regardless of the well known productivity gains.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#202

Post by OJFord »

PopAlongKid wrote: post #20

>that form allowed the company to then tax me on that ‘gift’ as income, Wrong. There is no "form" needed for taxation, it is required by the IRS (in U.S.) and the company does not "tax" anyone. Employer gifts (other than de minimis amounts) are taxable compensation. (see IRS Publication 15-B for details). A good employer will "gross up" cash gifts to cover the taxes.

Why are you so aggressively sure that was an American anecdote?

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#203

Post by bluedino »

One tone-deaf employer I worked for:

The production/assembly building would get very hot in the summer. One day, a decision was made to pass out bottles of Gatorade to the workers in the building. The marketing/sales department decided to turn this into a social media 'opportunity', they left their air-conditioned offices to have pictures taken of them handing cold bottles of Gatorade to the production floor employees.

They made it look like an act of charity on LinkedIn, Facebook, etc.

What I've seen other employers do is provide large coolers of drinks and cups for employees to have throughout the day when it's very hot out.

Even dumber than that, this happened just weeks after the company removed the soft drink vending machines from the building because of 'health' reasons.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#204

Post by lupire »

nindalf wrote: post #131
Gordonjcp wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Religion brings benefits to it's members, such as living longer, happier lives. [citation needed]

Ask and ye shall receive. Association of Religious Service Attendance With Mortality Among Women (2016) - https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar... . > Women who went to any kind of religious service more than once a week had a 33% lower chance than their secular peers of dying during the 16-year study-follow-up period.

No post body was provided.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#205

Post by lupire »

fma wrote: post #89
jerlam wrote: post #49

Not just employee gifts, but nearly all gifts are valued less by the receiver than the giver. A gift represents a decision made on behalf of the receiver by the giver. In very few situations would the receiver make the same decision as the giver with the same resources. It's assumed that the receiver will use the same resources in an optimal manner, so gift-giving is a net negative. In some circumstances, gifts are v…

It's why I prefer to give hard cold cash. Not even gift cards...cash. And definitely not those stupid Visa gift cards where you pay a activation fee and occasionally get scammed. I'm also from an Asian background where cash is more acceptable. I feel any other form of gifting is a ruse to increase consumerism, i.e. the popularity of gift registries, the perception that one isnt thoughtful if you dont yet a good gift…

A gift registry is the one thing better than cash, because it skips an extra transactional step for a purchase that was going to happen anyway.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#206

Post by lupire »

mcv wrote: post #132
jerlam wrote: post #49

Not just employee gifts, but nearly all gifts are valued less by the receiver than the giver. A gift represents a decision made on behalf of the receiver by the giver. In very few situations would the receiver make the same decision as the giver with the same resources. It's assumed that the receiver will use the same resources in an optimal manner, so gift-giving is a net negative. In some circumstances, gifts are v…

At my first job, the boss/owner of the company knew a lot about wine. As a result, the Christmas gift basket contained a lot of excellent wines that I wouldn't have been able to pick out myself. But I guess that's an example of expertise. And of course it's not much use to someone who doesn't like wine (they may have had a non-alcoholic alternative).

"excellent wines" or a great example of a wasteful gift because excellent wines aren't substantially better than OK wines, unless you are a wine enthusiast (not just a wine drinker).

It's like giving out RTX 3080s en masse. Most people won't get the value of what you spent.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#207

Post by justsomehnguy »

ehnto wrote: post #118
nomilk wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First time encountering a 406: Not acceptable.

I had a giggle. It seems we have disappointed the server. It's kindof ambiguous as a response too, I wonder what they intend it to mean.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/406

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#208

Post by pc86 »

lupire wrote: post #191
bootloop wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't necessarily think he should have been compensated based on the (theoretical) loss of money. He was employed after all. And properly someone else would haved saved the day early enough anyway. But 25$ is quite an embarrassment. Nothing would have been better in that case.

> And properly someone else would haved saved the day early enough anyway. According to the story, no. The regular employees in the regular system failed, and OP person decided to act like an owner and save the company, outside of job responsibilities, covering up for management's failure to build and test a reliable system. Did the OP person get paid like an owneror promoted to a leadership position for being a lead…

OP's friend didn't get paid like an owner because he wasn't an owner. If you want to be an owner you have to take on the risk as well. If they had missed it, and lost the 5M, you wouldn't support them taking back half of this guy's pay for the next 6 months to help make up for it.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#209

Post by tablespoon »

> “I got a $5 grocery card,” wrote a one employee. “Excuse me?? What the hell am I supposed to buy with $5?”

Also a grocery card is kind of insulting. Sure everyone buys groceries, but giving one can be interpreted as implying you think they need help paying for food.

----

My company contracted out its "performance rewards" gifts to a 3rd party company. As far as I can tell ALL of the items are 2x overpriced in points, compared to gift cards, but the gift card selection isn't great. At least for a couple items I was looking I could get the offered item via one of the offered gift cards and save literally hundreds of dollars.

Another suggestion for the list: don't do that, and make things a good deal, or at least value them fairly.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#210

Post by paulgb »

tablespoon wrote: post #209

> “I got a $5 grocery card,” wrote a one employee. “Excuse me?? What the hell am I supposed to buy with $5?” Also a grocery card is kind of insulting. Sure everyone buys groceries, but giving one can be interpreted as implying you think they need help paying for food. ---- My company contracted out its "performance rewards" gifts to a 3rd party company. As far as I can tell ALL of the items are 2x overpriced in point…

But only a little bit of help, evidently. Maybe they want you to treat yourself and splurge on an avocado.
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