Delight your employees with the following Christmas gifts!
Gifts are essential in our lives. From Christmas to birthday gifts, these little things help build and strengthen our connections with others. When we give someone gifts, our bodies will release chemicals like dopamine and endorphins, which are known to make us happy. These chemicals also play an essential role in promoting positive feelings in social interactions, including those in the workplace.
As an employer or manager, you can bring positive social interactions to your company through gift-giving. Sending simple gifts to your staff can show them your appreciation and make them feel valued, which helps to nurture long-term constructive collaboration relationships. Sending gifts at the end of the year, in particular, is a great way for you to express gratitude to your employees for their hard work throughout the year.
Since Christmas is around the corner, we’ve rounded up five thoughtful gifts you can consider sending your incredible employees to show your gratitude this season.
Noise-canceling earbuds
Office noise can be disturbing sometimes, be it a loud ventilation system or a noisy printer. It can make your company’s productivity fall because such disturbances can take as much as 86 minutes away from your employees per day. Installing partitions is one effective way to fight the noise, but this can be an ambitious undertaking (both physically and economically). A simple alternative to dealing with office noise is buying your employees good-quality noise-canceling earbuds, which can help them concentrate on their work.
Our picks: Apple AirPods Pro 2 (US$249), Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II (US$299), Samsung Galaxy Buds2 Pro (US$230), Sony WF-1000XM4 (US$279.9)
Personalized notebooks
While notebooks appear to be an ancient product in this digital age, they can make for the perfect Christmas gift when personalized. Custom-designed notebooks allow you to customize almost every detail as far as your creativity flows, including paper sizes and sheet styles (e.g., blank, lined, graph).
If you want to wow your employees, start by customizing the cover design and include something that can remind everyone in the company of the good times spent together. This could be a group photo taken during an annual dinner or off-site trip. In doing so, not only can you create one-of-a-kind notebooks, but you can also spread positivity in the workplace, which adds to team cohesion in the long run.
Our picks: Leuchtturm1917, Moleskine, Rhodia
Essential oil diffusers
Work gets hectic from time to time. Unlike working from home, when you can give yourself a break after completing a task, you can’t take a nap or spend an hour in the pantry having snacks between tasks in the office. Essential oil diffusers are here to the rescue.
In case essential oils are entirely new to you, they are compounds extracted from plants. Popular oil types, such as lavender, sandalwood, peppermint and tea tree, carry distinctive smells and various potential health benefits. In particular, smelling lavender oil can relieve stress and anxiety and improve sleeping quality. On the other hand, using peppermint and tea tree oils can help fight bacterial infections.
Using essential oils can not only keep your mental and physical health in check, but their diffusers also help decorate the workspace. The best of both worlds, and a great multipurpose gift!
Our picks: Asakuki 500ml essential oil diffuser (US$26 from Amazon), Muji 100ml ultrasonic aroma diffuser (US$69.9), Urpower 2nd Gen 300ml aroma essential oil diffuser (US$30 from Amazon; US$54 from Walmart), Urpower 500ml aromatherapy essential oil diffuser (US$24 from Amazon)
Note: essential oils can cause allergic reactions, such as a runny nose and itchy eyes. Although most of these reactions are mild and can be treated at home, you should check with your staff before gift-wrapping essential oils for them.
Desk organizers
Whether working at an organized or cluttered office desk is more beneficial has been an ongoing debate. Statistics indicate that a clean desk can shoot up productivity and persistence by 84% and allow workers to work 7.5 minutes longer without feeling distracted. On the other hand, those who work at messy desks waste 4.3 hours per week on average looking for paper. Hilarious as this may be, these numbers illustrate the importance of desk organizers in enhancing productivity.
Desk organizers come in all kinds of designs boasting different functions. For simple stationery storage, you may buy acrylic racks, storage drawers or trays with partitions. For document storage, card boxes, letter stands and dividers are what you need. If a well-organized workspace is what you wish for your employees this Christmas, these desk organizers should be on your list.
Our picks: Muji, IKEA (please refer to their desk organizer catalogs)
Desk plants
When it comes to plants, the first thing that might pop up in your mind could be this idea: “looking at green things can relax your eyes”. No one knows where this saying comes from, but this “old wisdom” has certainly influenced and compelled many people to buy plants. If you’re one of them, you might think that desk plants are an excellent gift because your employees can relax their eyes without leaving their seats.
However, that is not really the case. That’s because the color green, usually present in plants, cannot relax your eyes. It is believed to do the trick because greenery is typically planted at a distance, and our eye muscles relax when we look at distant objects.
Although plants do not help your employee’s eye health, they are essential in any office because the green color has a relaxing effect on an employee’s mind, helping them alleviate stress, depression, nervousness and anxiety. Bonsai trees, a kind of miniaturized tree in plant pots, are great office plants because they don’t take up too much space. If you want to create a relaxing working environment, sending desk plants to your employees is the right way to go.
Our picks: Bonsai tree (US$38.95-179.95 at Bonsai Outlet), Spider plant (US$12 at Amazon), Succulents (a set of six; US$22 at Amazon), ZZ plant (US$20 at Amazon)
Hopefully, this article gives you some ideas on what to surprise your employees with this Christmas. But don’t let this article keep you long, go ahead and thank your staff with incredible gifts! Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Also read:
- 10 Ways to Go Green and Celebrate a Sustainable Christmas This Year
- Sparking Productivity through Office Design—Where Do We Start?
- Stop Mindless Eating: What Mindful Snacks Can Do to Uplift Workplace Productivity
Header image courtesy of Freepik
