Unique Gifts for Remote Employee Appreciation

Remote Work

Unique Gifts for Remote Employee Appreciation

Working from home demands a particular time for yourself and your office members. While the on-site interaction is absent in work from home, employees can still appreciate each other, and the office itself can thank its employees for honest service. Employers can show their appreciation to employees through unique gifts.

Giving your remote employees gifts in bulk isn’t apparent concerning individual choices, and the gift choice may differ from one member to another employee in a team.

Here is a listing of unique gifts and ideas to explore and choose the best ones for remote employees’ appreciation.

List of Gifts for Remote Employees Appreciation

List of Gifts for Remote Employees Appreciation

There are virtual gifts for employees, and it’s a great idea to exchange appreciation virtually. Employers can still send offline gift sets or physical presents to employees at their home addresses.

Gifting employees is an excellent way of showing that you care and appreciate the daily tasks they conduct in the office.

1. Virtual Events for Team

Virtual events, excluding the daily standups and work-related meetings, you can organize the online possibilities for employees.

Online events help the employees relax and enjoy the monotonous work as an appreciation gift.

With virtual team-building games and virtual team-building activities, employees can improve bonding and problem-solving skills.

Virtual events are great for communicating with your team members and sharing stories as you did in the on-site offices.

The ideas for online events and virtual gifts include productive ones like learning office skills together, cooking lessons with employees, wine tasting, a happy hour cocktail kit with online games like Trivia, or throwing up virtual parties for retirement or birthdays and holidays celebrations.

2. Care Packages

Care packages as gifts for employees are great ways to make anyone feel special. The company and its members are like one big family, and care packages for individual members or employees are a great idea to appreciate them. The care kit may be for individual members or your entire family or pets.

Self Care Pack Includes

  • A weighted blanket to keep employees warm during work hours.
  • Bathing salts and essential oils.
  • Facial care kit.
  • Books for peace of mind.
  • Gift cards
  • Mugs or water bottles with an office logo are an option.
  • Coffee Beans

Family Care Pack Includes

  • Photo Frames
  • Chocolates or cookies targeting the holiday seasons are an excellent idea.
  • Family games like UNO.
  • Holiday lights and cards

Pet Care Pack Includes

  • Pet grooming materials
  • Dog Bowl
  • Hamster wheel
  • Fish food
  • Pet Furniture and T-shirt
  • Costumes and accessories for pets

3. Tech Accessories

Remote work from home may include the rules and regulations for accessories like laptops or desktops. It is necessary to note that the only medium you can connect to the office members is via the internet.

Employers can give things for working efficiently, and the tech-friendly accessories help speed up the work and act as support during the workdays as office gifts. Tech accessories cheer up the employees and are great for corporate gifting.

Some tech accessories as remote employee appreciation gifts are:

  • Charging Banks and cables for work adjustments
  • Standing Desk
  • Laptop bags and high-resolution monitors are one of the things to gift your employees.
  • Blue light glasses 
  • Mousepads
  • Headphones and cable quacks are an alternative.

4. Employee Appreciation Day

Wouldn’t it be sweet? An entire day dedicated to the employees and their presence in different events makes the day worthy for all the employees.

Employee appreciation day is a fantastic day. For a whole day to appreciate your employees, here are some ideas:

  • Office Olympics
  • Thank you card exchanging day in which every employee can understand each other through digital cards.
  • Employees and their respective families’ online party brings everyone together.
  • The employee of the month award title is necessary to award the most talented and productive employee.
  • Surprise meal delivery is also an excellent way to appreciate your work members.

5. Equipment for Home Fitness

For maintaining the overall wellbeing and wellness of remote workers, you can send them equipment for daily exercises.

This equipment with a healthy snack will encourage employees to stay in proper shape and take care of their bodies. Some instruments that you can gift your employees are:

  • Balls to inflate are necessary for exercise.
  • Yoga mats and blocks encourage employees to form daily yoga habits.
  • Gym membership card.
  • Gift voucher of sporty brands.
  • Elastic bands and fitness trackers keep employees in shape.

6. Desk Supplies With Stationery

Providing desk supplies with stationery items is a great idea. The stationary items are helpful for daily office work, and employees feel appreciated. Some items as stationery are:

  • Gifting writing Tools like pens, markers, and highlighters are good as stationery items are essential for daily use.
  • Grouping tools like stapler, stapler remover, paper clips help organize documents and papers.
  • High-quality printing paper.
  • Pen and pencil holders.
  • Desk staplers and organizers.
  • Lap desks and notepads.

Themed stationery is a good idea with the company’s logo, or any theme employees prefer. The graphic designer can suggest unique design patterns for stationery.

7. Tea, Coffee Beverages

An on-site office would include many rounds of coffee and tea to get you through a typical office day.

Your employees can follow the same trend as you supply them with multi-flavored teas and high-quality coffee.

While it’s easy to prepare tea and coffee, you can supply them with snacks to have with tea. Employees remain fueled with coffee, and it’s a good idea to break many hours of work with beverages.

The smell of tea and coffee makes the environment fresh, encouraging employees to work more.

8. Coworking Spaces

Every home may not be suitable for work and is not ideal for continuing office chores. So the employers can book memberships for the employees learning about the location they live in and rent a place for office work.

Make sure the coworking place is quiet and has a robust internet connection. You can rent a hotel or cafe or give coworking memberships to your employees, and the offer may be for many days or even based on months.

9. Desserts

Sweet gift ideas include sending your employees a basket of desserts with pastries, puffs, cookies, and muffins. Ensure the goodies are well packaged and shipped safely to every employee’s house.

Desserts help limit the craving, help employees freshen up their moods and encourage them to stay active. Desserts make people happy, lower blood pressure, and sometimes prevent strokes.

10. Paid Time Off

Paid time off policies is excellent for employees as they can take a break once in a year for traveling, resting on sick days or personal situations, and still get paid. The pool of leaves requires preservation for a long time.

The long leaves include attending marriages, traveling alone, vacationing, or festival celebrations with family.

The paid time off gives employees a chance to focus on their personal life with support from the office.

11. Incentives According To Performance

Providing incentives is an excellent idea for improving performance and encouraging employees to perform better.

The incentives may be in the form of cash or something else and is a way to show employees that you care.

Bonuses make employees happy, and performance awards keep their confidence boosted. Gift certificates and tax reductions by employers willing to pay employees’ taxes are a great idea.

12. Flowers and Houseplants

You can order flowers and houseplants for your employee’s house. Plants make their homes natural, and some plants help improve health by producing oxygen. Your employees remain healthy.

Flowers and plants provide a better-looking work spot at home. With a brighter and well-ventilated room, the employees are more productive, and plants help in boosting the creativity of the workers.

13. Sherpa Blanket

Sherpa blankets are great corporate gifts as they are easy to maintain and are portable for travel. Your employees stay warm while working for the office, and it shows how much the office cares for its employees.

These custom blankets are stylish and do not use animal products as furs are synthetically made and less bulky. Employees can carry it around their homes until they find the best spot to work effectively.

14. Ebooks

Ebooks are a wonderful gift for spending days or utilizing free time for bookworms. The best idea is to give them access to e-library or ebook platforms to choose the book of their genre.

Sending ebooks is more accessible than sending the hard copy, and the employees can download as many books as they like and read them anytime, anyplace.

You may think of sending an ebook the next time you feel like appreciating your employee.

15. Corporate Digital Health Wellness Platform

Health and wellness programs are essential in every corporate office. When the employees are far away, health and wellness platforms enable them to remember healthy habits and track the number of steps walked in a day or total calories burnt.

Alerts for drinking water encourage employees to stay hydrated. Employees think of proper healthy habits and start following a healthy routine with a healthy diet. These apps result in employee wellness and wellbeing.  

16. Group Picture

A group picture in a remote scenario is easy as you press the screenshot button, and every member fits the screen. Pictures are emotional and memorable, and group pictures require gathering all members.

All team members can gather in a Zoom call, or you can make a collage of all the members in one pic online.

If possible, you can find funny faces of any member and make good jokes about them. The group picture is easily printable in mugs, t-shirts, or blankets.

17. Posts in Social Media/ Blog Post

The best way to appreciate your employee is by writing a thank you post for the honest and good work they contribute to the team or office.

Posting on social media encourages other members to perform better, just like the one appreciated, and it is a good idea for coworkers to praise their bosses.

Dedicating a blog post for employees is a sweet gesture, and employees can write blog posts for their bosses. Blog posts are great for birthdays, promotions, and a special day called boss’s day.

You can post about the good qualities of the employee you are writing about and the lessons learned from your leader with a thank you note.

18. Virtual Assistants

Arranging a virtual assistant for a few hours or days is a great idea to help your boss work in a remote team.

In the busiest time of the year, you can provide your lead with a helping hand to finish all the essential duties on time.

If your boss is handling multiple jobs simultaneously, virtual assistants make it easy to organize, plan, and complete the different tasks. Freelancers are available in Upwork and other freelancing sites.

19. Custom Bobblehead

Bobbleheads are unique and crack many up. You can give your employees their custom bobblehead, and they may like it.

Just imagine a bobblehead of your best colleague or your boss on their respective remote desk.

Bobbleheads are a great decorative item, and sending them to your employees will add fun, joy, and humor.

Employees can look at their bobbleheads and continue with the daily organizational task assigned by the office.

20. Gift Card and Vouchers

Gift cards and vouchers from any sports brand or departmental store allow your employees to shop anything they want under the limit paid by the office.

Employees will love to buy things of their choice and enjoy shopping with gift cards. Employees can choose the platform online and get their items delivered at home.

Gift cards from Starbucks or eateries are suitable for the employees as they order the food of their preferences for themselves and their families.

21. Snack Box

Sending snack boxes to your remote employee is easy and convenient. It is the latest trend of some companies to surprise employees with snack boxes at their doorstep.

You can try sending the whole organic healthy snacks. Other snacks include titbits from different brands that come in different flavors.

You can even consider customizing the snacks and curated boxes for your employees. Delivering the snacks at home will ensure that your employees enjoy their work with snacks.

22. Candles and Essential Oils

Candles and essential oils are great healers to calm your senses. Candles are a great holiday gift for families, and you can use essential oils.

Candles help in soothing the mind and stimulating memory and help in improving the moods of your employees.

Essential oils help detox the body, boost immunity, aid digestion, and help your office workers remain physically and mentally well. Gifting employees with candles and essential oils is a gift for the whole family.

23. Subscription

Ever wondered how your employees working from far away spend their off-days?

When the office provides a free subscription to its employees, they surely will enjoy their spare time watching documentaries or movies with their best series on Netflix, Amazon, or others.

The employees can have a fantastic time with their families and enjoy the shows at home. Having access to millions of videos online, they can take out time to watch something related to office work or watch their kid’s favorite cartoon.

24. Classes Vouchers

Employees may have their hobbies and interests, and you can ask them to fill up a form stating their unique hobbies and ideas. The exact list of hobbies is usable to buy class vouchers for your employees.

For instance, if a few of your employees love cooking, employers can give them vouchers for cooking classes.

If another employee loves violin, you can send them violin class cards. This gesture shows your care for the employees and feels appreciated.

Why Appreciate Your Employees?

It would help if you appreciated your employees as an office without employees is unimaginable and meeting the organizational goals is next to impossible.

Some reasons why you should understand your employees are:

  • Employees work honestly with proper appreciation and remain engaged to increase productivity.
  • Appreciation works mutually, i.e., when you appreciate your employees, they start respecting you.
  • Appreciation helps employee retention as workers feel cared for work for a longer time in an office—the employee turnover ratio decreases.
  • Exchanging positive messages with gifts deepens the bond between employer, organization, and employee helping in EOR (Employee Organizational Relationships).

Conclusion

Providing unique gifts helps boost employee morale, and a stress reduction kit makes sure your employees are in good mental health. Resistance bands are good with wireless earbuds or exercise equipment as gifts.

Some inexpensive gifts are gift cards, and corporate wellness programs help ensure employee wellness.

Employees feel happy and encouraged when their employers appreciate them, and appreciation gifts boost their morale.