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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

#221

Post by couchand »

agentwiggles wrote: post #216
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…

Ugh, when I was at accenture (briefly, after an acquisition), they had a similar "points" system where you could cash the points in for rewards. Most of it was absolute junk. I did manage to extract a bit of value when I found they could be cashed in for Nintendo eShop money - there's worse things than a free game - but still. Just ... give me money. In a previous gig we were on the receiving end of a fairly pathetic…

> after all, it's pure sugar on top of your agreed upon salary no matter how you slice it

I strongly disagree, at least in my area and culture. It's widely assumed that employers will provide some kind of year-end holiday-time bonus. It's just as much a part of exprcted total compensation as tips in industries afflicted by that cancer.

An employer stiffing employees deserves to be called out for violating norms.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#222

Post by langsoul-com »

Aloha wrote: post #22

Ironic, I just got a email about company holiday gifts. I've gotten some great swag, clothing mostly - a very very nice couple of jackets, headphones (which were made by a sibling in our conglomerate) and a pack of misc snacks - plus the ubiquitous coffee cups. This year on offer is an 8 lb ham, an 11-13lb turkey, a mix of foods, or a premium chocolate sampler, or I can donate the equivalent to the local food bank.

What choice are you gonna take? If it's good ham, that seems like a good choice.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#223

Post by mcv »

lupire wrote: post #206
mcv wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

And excellent wine can be a lot better than an OK wine for a similar cost. I think it's a perfect example where some expertise can dramatically increase the value. For wine drinkers, at least.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#224

Post by langsoul-com »

mcv wrote: post #134
unsupp0rted wrote: post #53

> A good gift gives employees a renewed fervor to work harder, helps them feel more motivated, and makes them feel more valued by their employers. Does it? I’ve never experienced this. A company is not a person. A good gift or a bad gift makes me feel the company made a business decision that affected me, just like any other business decision that affected me.

A raise. A raise is the best gift a company can give its employees. And a raise big enough to take an employee's financial worries off the table has a good chance of making them feel more motivated and more valued.

It's not in a companies best interest to give everyone a raise. The less they pay you, given you don't leave, the more they have each year.

It's a sad reality, but the one we live in.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#225

Post by topkai22 »

agentwiggles wrote: post #216
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…

Ugh, when I was at accenture (briefly, after an acquisition), they had a similar "points" system where you could cash the points in for rewards. Most of it was absolute junk. I did manage to extract a bit of value when I found they could be cashed in for Nintendo eShop money - there's worse things than a free game - but still. Just ... give me money. In a previous gig we were on the receiving end of a fairly pathetic…

My work was thinking of adopting one of those points based systems for peer recognition. I happened to have been on a team that had already built a small recognition system internally already, so I got to sit in on the pitch meeting.

There was a lot to like about the pitch, but my reaction to the “rewards store” was “ugh, this feels like the incredibly manipulative and icky ‘reward catalogs’ we got whenever their was a youth fundraiser. It would lower my trust in the company. Can we just do cash?”

Apparently they could do that, but the sales team couldn’t conceive of the “rewards center” as being a turnoff. They either truly thought it added value or it was so central to their business model they couldn’t believe people might not want it.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#226

Post by kapilkale »

magic_hamster wrote: post #59

I understand the server is having difficulties, but this is the first time I see "406 - not acceptable" in the wild. I expected it to throw a 500 error or just timeout.

That makes two of us. We have a Cloudflare worker serve the content from Webflow (which is actually set up with a custom domain at https://webflow2.tremendous.com/. Yes, it's a little convoluted.

We still don't know what broke here - the Cloudflare worker or Webflow, or the combination of the two.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#227

Post by technoooooost »

antihero wrote: post #156
h1fra wrote: post #150

It's funny how different industry can be, in tech most people love receiving swag it even becomes their entire wardrobe ahah I mostly don't care about gifts but there is one that had me burst laughing; Company wanted to celebrate "employee appreciation day" or something like that. We received a big announcement from the CEO with... a 10$ gift card. It's coming from a good sentiment but is my work only appreciated to…

I really don't get why people in tech love swag so much. Is it because people's esteems are generally so low that they will become walking advertisments because it gives them a sense of pride to show that they work at whatever company?

Lol no, quite the opposite. Flexin' on them peasants with our big tech t shirts

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#228

Post by Aloha »

langsoul-com wrote: post #222
Aloha wrote: post #22

Ironic, I just got a email about company holiday gifts. I've gotten some great swag, clothing mostly - a very very nice couple of jackets, headphones (which were made by a sibling in our conglomerate) and a pack of misc snacks - plus the ubiquitous coffee cups. This year on offer is an 8 lb ham, an 11-13lb turkey, a mix of foods, or a premium chocolate sampler, or I can donate the equivalent to the local food bank.

What choice are you gonna take? If it's good ham, that seems like a good choice.

I might take the donate to charity option, tbh.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#229

Post by H1Supreme »

bayindirh wrote: post #77
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…

This is a very simplistic and very narrow perspective about gifting when looked from this side. I don't consider gifts as the items solely. The person who brought the gift spent some time pondering what would I like, gave his/her best shot. Spent time and funds to acquire this and gave it to me. Yes, it might not be the exact item I'd get; yes, it might not be crazy expensive (or just flat out cheap and simple). But…

> The person who brought the gift spent some time pondering what would I like, gave his/her best shot.

That's a hell of an assumption to make. There's a very real chance they spent 2 seconds buying something last minute because they were obligated to buy you something! I see my girlfriend do it every Christmas.

Re: Employee gift ideas that make people feel bad

#230

Post by foobarian »

jasode wrote: post #121
bayindirh wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very simplistic and very narrow perspective about gifting when looked from this side. I don't consider gifts as the items solely. The person who brought the gift spent some time pondering what would I like, gave his/her best shot. Spent time and funds to acquire this and gave it to me. Yes, it might not be the exact item I'd get; yes, it might not be crazy expensive (or just flat out cheap and simple). But…

>The thoughtfulness and kindness what makes a gift, a gift. That gift is priceless for me from now on. It can be a mug, it can be a pin, it can be a watch, or anything. Have a 75-year old friend that thought exactly like this and because of it, her house ended up being cluttered with tons of cat trinkets that she didn't want because her coworkers happen to find out "she likes cats" . So she had cat figurines, cat pot…

This is why I like consumable gifts the best. A dinner, a soap, some chocolate or wine.

But even that can trip up people who like to keep stuff in pristine condition. I think there would be a market for products that come in a "open" state - the cover torn off, a fake outer seal broken, 3 chocolate slots empty ("eaten") etc. so they can be more suitable for hoarders.

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