Your curated checklist for simple, impactful holiday gifting
October 2025 | PerfectGift Experts | 5 minute read
When we’re talking about ROI (Return on Investment) we think of the basics--usually it’s about how much you spend on an initiative versus how much value you create, but we know that it isn’t that simple. Contrary to popular belief, not every cost is related to “money.” We know that ROI can be used in soft terms instead of cold hard percentages.
For instance, when we’re taking a look at employee recognition or holiday recognition programs, those incentives can lead to more engaged teams and reduced staff turnover. Then we, as businesses, can pull the numbers on how much staff turnover costs us to demonstrate that reducing turnover would be a good thing qualitatively rather than constantly onboarding new people due to low company morale.
The bread and butter of our company comes down to the teams we have working for us, and when we show them how much we need them and how much we appreciate their efforts, we can boost not only our intake but also produce good business practices.
As owners and/or managers we tend to look at things in the long-term, because while those working below or near us are solving everyday problems with clients, we are thinking of the future. The holidays seem to sneak up on us faster and faster every year, and since we are, (or are trying to be), one to two step ahead, we need to be putting any holiday recognition programs together early so everything runs smoothly and we can actively look forward to guaranteed ROI all while celebrating hard work and joyful cheer.
In this article you’ll read about:
- A Breakdown of Holiday Recognition Programs and Why They’re Important
- What is Value and Why is it Not Just Money
- Positive Benefits to Holiday Recognition Programs
- How You Can Use PerfectGift as a Part of your Future Holiday Recognition
- Conclusion: The ROI of Holiday Recognition Programs
Remote workers deserve their flowers at the end of the year too, learn How to Celebrate Remote Teams During the Holidays.
A Breakdown of Holiday Recognition Programs and Why They’re Important
We’re going to take a step back from our job, or in this case a push back from our desk in our office chair, to a time during the holidays where you felt most at home. It could be when you were a kid getting the one toy you’d had been begging for all year, or maybe it was a gift you totally weren’t expecting from a partner or a friend as you entered adulthood. It could also have nothing to do with a gift, it could be when you’re with your closest friends and family members all gathered around in a dimly lit room talking, laughing, eating good food, and sharing even warmer memories.
These moments are what makes us love the holidays and when it comes to our work, we don't want our employees to be eagerly glancing at the clock awaiting their shift’s end everyday in December. We want to create another place where those moments we just remembered can be created even at work.
That’s why holiday recognition programs exist.
It’s a business strategy that’s all about taking in the hard work our teams have done throughout the year and recognizing that through a variety of ways like rewards, thoughtful year-end reviews, recurring positive messaging, office parties, and more.
There’s even other businesses out there that directly make accessible awards for companies to utilize for said holiday recognition programs- more on that a little later.
The importance of these programs continues to be proven through studies like the 2023 Tremondus Holiday Employee Gifting Study that reports “92% of respondents experience a positive attitude shift for a month or more after receiving a good holiday gift.” and “46% reported having a better attitude for a year or more.”
This is also majorly due to the gift itself, corporate swag and food gifts are often a big thumbs down from employees, they don't need shirts or mugs with their work’s name on it, or pizza parties they can easily get ordered from the comfort of their home. The real thing they want, what everyone wants, is money they can then use to spend on their own holiday gifts or on themselves to enjoy a job well done at the end of the long year.
The ROI of doing holiday gifts correctly is significant, especially when you take into account what workers actually want. Image courtesy of: Tremendous.
What is Value and Why is it Not Just Money
Contradictory to what we just said, “value” doesn’t always equate to money. In fact when we look at the long and the short of it, value comes most feasibly from good company rapport; and money will eventually come out of those decision makers as an added bonus.
We mentioned in the intro that reducing turnover would be and is a good thing qualitatively because it’s reported from Built In that “losing an employee can cost a company one half to two times the employee's salary.”
Aka when you treat your employees like crap, you’ll get treated as such.
Bringing teams together through holiday recognition programs, especially at the end of the year when people are in more of a festive mood, excited about vacations from work and time with family and friends they don’t normally get to see, will strengthen bonds and further gel to create a stronger company culture.
You often hear the colloquial “happy wife, happy life” well, in reality it should be more, “happy team, happy work environment.”
Creating an environment through positive incentives all throughout the year is a full-proof way to commit to stronger boss-employee relations, no matter the type of company you own.
Holiday cheer brings out the best in us and it certainly does in a work environment. Image courtesy of: Vocal Media: Geeks.
Positive Benefits to Holiday Recognition Programs
Recognition isn’t just a nice thing to have happen to you or to your employees, it’s an active business strategy that further incentivizes people to stick around and continue to not only like their job but to improve their workflow. Here are some bulleted points on the positive benefits of holiday recognition programs:
- Boosted Productivity: We ourselves don’t like working during and directly after the holidays, it’s like running through waist deep water, tiring and you’re just trying to get to the other side. But when we take time to recognize that feeling instead of trying to ignore it or worse, force it away with more work, we see boosted productivity even when we wanna get home to watch Buddy the Elf.
- Creates Employee Loyalty: This one we’ve touched on a few times so far, we’ve seen that reducing turnover is statistically proven to not only be good for your company’s finances, but it also creates an environment that’ll lead to a greater output of sustainable work.
- Improves Workplace Culture: We as managers and bosses may not work with a lot of people day-to-day but that can’t be said about our employees. They are surrounded by the same people day in and day out which makes creating a healthy workplace culture is crucial. When everyone is shown they are equally as important to the company’s health then that will lead to everyone working more smoothly together and will even increase productivity. When one person gets recognized, everyone should celebrate because they know they will also be recognized and appreciated in due time.
How You Can Use PerfectGift as a Part of your Future Holiday Recognition
Exit out of that Personalization Mall ad and take a step back from figuring out how many paper plates are too many for your office party. We know now from the few studies we looked at that that doesn’t positively affect employees’ emotions and overall well-being during the holidays.
What we do know is that monetary gifts like bonuses and versatile gift cards, not just a $5 card to a local chain restaurant, are what they do want.
We at PerfectGift have the perfect solution to finding a suitable reward as a cog in your holiday recognition program’s wheel. Combining the efforts and knowledge of our sister sites, GiftYa, GiftCardGranny, and GiftCards.com, we've made our site the exact right place for you to find a holiday gift for your employees. With robust branding with logos on physical & digital cards and packaging, as well as self-serve management of resend, replace, reissue & refund gift cards you'll be able to fulfill what you need for the holidays this year.
For small businesses you’ll be able to pick between ordering 1 to 50 cards with a $10,000 limit--and for corporations you’ll be able to buy 50+, emphasis on the plus as we are the only on-demand fulfillment center in the country that can print & ship up to 50,000 cards with your logo - same-day, cards at a time.
Corporations will have to create a business account with PerfectGift to get started on an order of substantial size. Here you can check off your itemized “what our holiday recognition program needs” list quite easily.
We have all of the major brands out there for you to pick between or choose our “Visa gift card experience.” PerfectGift prints and ships our own Visa gift cards, so we can guarantee same day printing & shipping (if ordered by 4:00pm ET Monday through Saturday). Since we are all in-house, no one else can beat our turnaround time because a lot of other spaces use third-parties to get their stuff ready.
Or let the employees pick their gift card with PerfectGift+. This is our own version of a super incentive as it takes holiday gifting to a whole new level. This digital gift card is one that’s all about choice. Instead of you picking a brand you think all of your employees will like, recipients, aka your employees, get to choose any merchant they want from our vast catalog.
Conclusion: The ROI of Holiday Recognition Programs
From statistics by research reports, to understanding the ROI of holiday recognition programs, we can safely assume that when it comes to your next steps as management that you will find a boost not only in the general work atmosphere but in long-term engagement as well.
