Showing employee appreciation in the holiday season
The holiday season is the busiest time of year for many organizations, so it’s easy to let things like employee appreciation by the wayside. However, with The Great Resignation showing no signs of slowing, Christmas is an apt time to show your employees just how much you appreciate their hard work.
It’s been reported that nearly half of American workers leave jobs because they feel underappreciated. Moreover, the New Year brings a yearning for change in many, and most people who do leave their jobs do so in January – in 2022 alone, approximately 4.3 million US workers left their jobs for greener pastures.
With figures like these, it’s no wonder that showing employees appreciation at Christmas is vital to increasing employee satisfaction and reducing turnover. In this article, we’ll explain how you can show your employees how valued they are through a multitude of methods.
Employee Christmas party
Whether it’s a large-scale, formal Christmas party, a more casual holiday get-together, or a virtual event for a remote team, hosting an event for your employees is a great way to wrap up the year and show your employees some recognition in the form of a celebration.
When organizing a holiday party for your organization, be sure to set expectations early. Set out locations, times, themes, or dress codes clearly in the invitations, and be sure to send invitations out well in advance of the event to give your employees plenty of time to prepare.
If there’s a meal involved, you’ll want to make sure you take note of the dietary requirements of your employees to ensure there are options for them ahead of time. Also, make sure you’ve decided on an RSVP system, so you know exactly how many people you’ll need to cater for.
Employee Christmas party invitation wording
The wording on your company’s Christmas or holiday party invitation is really important, as it sets the tone for the event. Whatever type of event you’re hosting, you’ll want to clarify when and where it’s taking place, as well as any other expectations around dress code or theme. How you choose to
word these details in the invite, however, will depend on the type of event you’re hosting.
If the event you’re hosting is formal or black tie, you’ll want to clarify this in the invite – both explicitly, and through the language you use. A polite, formal invite, offering cordial invitations to join the festivities, will convey the formal nature of your event well.
If you’re hosting something more casual, then you can also put this across through your language. The formal ‘festivities’ you’d refer to for a black-tie event may become ‘a night of fun’, or a ‘holiday bash’. Whatever type of party you’re hosting this holiday season, make sure you reflect it in the invitation.
Consider noting on the invitation that your employees are invited for a night of festivities, as a thank you for all their hard work throughout the year. As we noted previously, Christmas can be a stressful time for many, and with most industries seeing a rise in resignations in January, it’s an apt opportunity for you to show appreciation and recognition to your staff, and to try and mitigate high turnover in the New Year.
Employee Christmas card messages
A Christmas card is another way to show your employees that the hard work they do is appreciated. Christmas cards are simple, but effective, as they carry a personal touch that can’t be felt over email. However manic Q4 can be, it’s still important to take the time and personally wish your employees a merry Christmas, thanking them for their hard work throughout the year.
Be sure to thank them for the work they do, and to wish the employee and their family a happy, restful holiday. Encourage them to enjoy this time with their families as a token of appreciation for all their hard work.
If you can, try your best to personalize your Christmas card messages to each employee individually. Detail specific elements of their performance that have impressed you. Maybe they’ve taken on additional responsibilities, lead an ambitious project to success, or maybe they always come to work
with a smile, a friendly face who is always happy to help. Whatever they’ve done for your organization, you should take the time to thank them personally for it.
Employee gift ideas for Christmas
Christmas is the season of giving, so a holiday gift is another great way to show your employees how much you appreciate them. Purchasing Christmas gifts for employees, however, can come with some challenges. If you’re trying to show appreciation for a team member you don’t know well personally,
it can be difficult to think of a professional gift they’d enjoy. Equally, if you have a remote team, organizing the logistics of shipping Christmas gifts to each individual can be timely and complicated.
Reachdesk’s corporate gifting platform can help you send Christmas gifts your employees are bound to love, without any hassle at your end. Our gifting platform is data-driven, so you can see which gifts go down well with the types of people you need to source holiday presents for. We operate worldwide, through a global network of warehouses and vendors, so you can send holiday gifts and
Christmas presents to employees all over the world without having to worry about logistics.
You can purchase gifts for employees through our platform, and we’re bound to have something for everyone. We can even create personalized, company-branded merchandise for your employees, to create a company-wide feeling of unity and team spirit. Christmas gifts are a great way to express
employee appreciation, and our corporate gifting solution can help you pick the perfect present to say thanks for a year of hard work.
Employee Christmas bonus
With gift shopping, family get-togethers, and a huge holiday feast to cook, Christmas is a hugely expensive time for everyone, so financial bonuses are another great way to show your employees that you appreciate all their hard work.
Rewarding your employees financially around Christmas is likely to keep employees happy, and is likely to benefit your staff retention rates in the long run.
How to calculate employee Christmas bonus
There are a few different ways of tackling the issue of calculating employee Christmas bonuses. The first would be to give each employee the same amount as a flat rate. This will mean that all your employees receive an equal show of appreciation, and you’ll avoid any awkward office conversations
about who got what. The downside is that this type of bonus doesn’t take individual employee input into account. It’s also important to remember that whatever flat-rate bonus you decide to give your employees will set a precedent for the following year.
You could opt for a performance-based Christmas bonus, which solves the issue of differentiating between the efforts of your employees. This can, however, become complicated. If you choose to reward employees based on their performance, you need to have a solid process for performance management throughout the year – one single appraisal in the run-up to Christmas won’t be enough to do this fairly.
Other options include profit share or salary percentage bonuses. These methods offer a more proportional approach, which can be preferable. Keep in mind, though, that with a profit share approach, communication is needed throughout the year on how much profit your company is turning, to manage expectations.
Recognizing employees all year round
January can be a tumultuous time for business everywhere – the beginning of Q1 coupled with a sharp rise in resignations can breed chaos for corporations. Showing your employees some gratitude at Christmas for all their hard work throughout the year is a great start, and is bound to positively impact job satisfaction.
However, making an active effort to show employees appreciation all year round is even better. Let Christmas be a starting point, and continue to show your employees recognition throughout the rest of the year to improve staff retention year-on-year. Our employee appreciation gift platform can help you find the perfect gifts to show your employees that their hard work and effort are noted.
Get in touch with our expert team today to book a demo, and find out what our gifting platform can do for you.
