Ho ho ho, all you office Santas! We know you love doling out prezzies to your productive elves, but hold up a minute. There’s an etiquette around workplace gift giving and receiving, and you break those rules at your peril. You want any gift exchange to be fun and make employees feel valued; get it wrong and you can end up with hurt feelings or, if things go really, really wrong, a complaint to HR.
If you are hosting a gift exchange:
- Do aim for inclusion; gifts should be thoughtful and of similar value for each employee.
- Don’t pressure employees to participate.
- Do set and observe a spending limit.
- Don’t host gift exchanges where “stealing” is allowed — this could easily result in hurt feelings and poor morale.
No matter what:
- Do keep gifts professional; avoid anything too personal or inappropriate for the workplace, such as alcohol or naughty gag gifts.
- Don’t give gifts to your bosses, especially near performance review time.
- Do establish a company code of ethics around workplace gift giving — and receiving, too — outlining under what circumstances employees may accept gifts, and what they may and may not accept.
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