Holiday gifts for employees that people actually want

Because 40 people don't want the same thing. Pick one item for everyone and some of them get something they will never use: the tea drinker gets a coffee mug, the person who hates clutter gets another desk ornament.

The people who do this well treat it as 40 small decisions, not one big one. A simple way to start: once a year, ask everyone for a few favorites, such as a treat, a hobby or a local business they love, and pick from that.

Branded items are a common miss. SwagDrop, which sells company merchandise, surveyed 2,500 full-time employees in the US and Canada for its own 2026 study: only 30.5% said the last branded item they got at work was something they would have chosen themselves, and 14.1% didn't keep it (ASI Central, June 9, 2026, read October 29, 2026).

Many do, and it's worth saying so. Asked to choose between a cash bonus and a company holiday party, "more than four in five full-time employed Canadians would choose a cash bonus", according to an October 2026 survey by Employment Hero, which sells HR software (Canadian HR Reporter, October 22, 2026, read October 29, 2026).

So be honest about what a gift is for:

• If you can pay a holiday bonus, pay it. A gift is not a substitute for pay, and people can tell when it's being used as one.
• A gift picked for the person comes on top. It says you noticed who they are: the runner, the new parent, the person who keeps a plant alive on every desk.
• If there's no budget for either, write a note. A few handwritten lines about what each person brings to the team cost nothing and show you noticed.

Gift cards sit between cash and a gift, and the IRS treats them like cash. See gift card or a real gift.

Start from a per-person amount you can give everyone, then multiply. The table is plain arithmetic for the gifts themselves, not a benchmark:

Tax and shipping come on top, at each store's own rates. In Gratos you see the exact total, tax and shipping included, before anyone approves.

For what published sources say about per-gift amounts, and where those figures come from, see how much to spend on employee gifts.

1. Pick the people. Choose them in Gratos or import a CSV. Gratos flags duplicates as it imports.
2. Set the campaign's total budget. Gratos warns you if the estimated total goes over it.
3. Choose the gifts. Gratos suggests a gift for each person from what's saved about them: what they like, what they avoid, their sizes and what never to send them. You can take its pick or choose one yourself.
4. Add a card. Gratos can draft a card message for each person, and you can edit it.
5. Approve. You review the list and approve the campaign's total. Nothing is bought until then.

Gratos then places each order on the store's own website, and the store ships it to the person. One view shows each person's gift and its status, from approval to delivery. Teams that use Slack can also run a campaign there; see the Slack app for how it works in Slack.

Earlier than feels necessary. Each store sets its own shipping times, and nothing is bought until it's approved, so the clock starts at approval, not when you open the campaign.

Leave time to review the list, to collect any missing addresses, and for the approval itself.