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How to Present Christmas Rewards to Staff Effectively

We are now only weeks away from that most traditional harbinger of the festive season: the launch of the major retailers’ Christmas adverts. An effective and timely advertising campaign can make or break the festive trading period for a major retailer, promoting positive perception of a particular brand through soft-focus lenses and glinting tinsel that genuinely brings people (and their wallets) through the door. There’s little doubt that Christmas is all about the presentation, but how can firms present their Christmas rewards to their employees in a way that helps create that same warm glow?

A Christmas gift should be as much about the thought that’s gone into it and the way that it’s presented as it is about the value. A Christmas reward is a way of saying thank you to your team for all their hard work, and it’s a great opportunity to boost morale, which can help on those dark January mornings.

Put some thought into the presentation…

Brown envelopes come with all sorts of associations, few of them positive and none of them particularly festive, so just chucking a brown envelope over the desk at someone may not really have the positive effect on team morale that you were hoping for.

…but don’t go over the top

Christmas means different things to different people however, and in these cash-conscious times, nobody wants to think that you’ve spent more on the presentation than on the gift itself. Hold off on hiring the choir and the brass band and keep the tinsel tasteful.

Start thinking early

Make sure that you think about your rewards well in advance of when they are going to be given out. The festive period tends to be a busy time and, unless you are very lucky, you rarely get the best deals, so think about what you are going to be giving your teams early so it’s not a last minute stressful rush on December 20th.

Leadership is all about planning and organising and Christmas is a fixed date that happens every year: so it shouldn’t be a difficult one to prepare for!

Don’t get hung up on presenting the reward in person (if it’s not practical)

Most companies have a far more complicated working environment than they did 20 years ago with flexible hours, home working, client visits and conference calls all reducing the time that people physically spend at their desks.

Given that most people of working age are comfortable with smart-phones, the internet and technology generally, an e-code sent out with a bit of personalisation and some panache can still  create the warm glow that you are looking to create with a Christmas reward.