🔑🎁 Keys to bulk employee holiday gifts
Good news: you can ditch the branded mugs for bulk digital gift cards, which land better with employees and easier for HR to send at scale.
Proof: Nearly half of workers in an Incentive Research Foundation survey picked gift cards as their top reward
How a gift card platform makes it easier: No setup fees, shipping, or guesswork—load your budget, trigger sends via API or Zapier, and track redemptions so a $50 gift really costs (and feels like) $50.
Finding the perfect bulk Christmas gifts for employees hasn’t always been easy.
We’re all familiar with the go-to (and often dated) employee gifts that companies have traditionally sent to show appreciation. By the end of our careers, we all seem to have a pile of well-meaning but ultimately unwanted tote bags, keychains, and t-shirts, and enough branded water bottles and stainless steel tumblers to stock a small sporting goods store.
All this company ‘swag’ might have had its place. But it no longer resonates with today’s workforce. How many coffee mugs and mouse pads do you really need?
Instead, employees now expect something more thoughtful, practical, and aligned with their needs. And employers want to send cost-effective recognition gifts that have been proven to boost morale.
In this article, we’ll explore a better way to send bulk Christmas gifts to your employees.
Research consistently shows that employees prefer gift cards over other types of gifts and rewards.
For example, according to the Incentive Research Foundation (IRF), nearly half of respondents in a recent survey consider gift cards to be the best gift to receive.
In fact, five times as many people would prefer a prepaid card (like a Visa® or Mastercard®) over straight cash.
Bottom line: if you want to give an easy gift that every team member will love, you can't go wrong with gift cards.
Digital gift cards offer flexibility that most gifts can't match, by allowing recipients to choose something they truly want or need. Employees see gift cards as ‘fun money’—extra funds to spend on something special, rather than blending into everyday expenses.🎉
“A gift card for a new golf club has to be spent on a golf club, so it’s guilt free,” says Bob Dawson, President of i-Myth, for the IRF.
We’ll cover why they’re great corporate gift ideas from an employee recognition and budget perspective further below.
First, we'll share some ways to turn gift cards into unique gifts that are still in line with your company culture.
Don’t assume that using bulk gift cards means you can’t add a personal touch to your employee holiday gifts.
Working with a modern gift card distributor will let you send your recipients a gift card to :