A different way to reward your team this Christmas

It’s that time of year when many businesses start thinking about how they can reward their team with a Christmas surprise. And by Christmas surprise I mean picking a slightly different hamper to last year that replaces the Lindt chocolate with Haigh’s.

There’s no denying that gift giving can be a tricky thing, so rather than fall back to the same old hamper, why not engage your team in a different way this year?

For the past few years at O’Connells OBM, one of the Core Crew of the Goods, the firm has been giving their team a set amount of cash and letting them choose the gift they want – a win-win for everyone! In the first year we started this activity everyone was intrigued when they got the calendar invite for a “Christmas Shopping Afternoon” – were we getting an afternoon off to do our Christmas shopping? Not quite – close to Christmas each year we all head out, receive our cash and are given a one hour time limit to pick our own Christmas gift! We then gather back for a few drinks and share with the rest of the group our Christmas gift for the year.

The only condition – we have to spend it or give it back (with any left overs get donated to charity).

It is a wonderful way to celebrate the approaching festive season and learn more about what our colleagues are interested in – outside the number crunching!

Are you giving gifts to your team members this year? What approach will you take?