Given the importance of festivals in India, organizations have always tried to be a part of such celebrations for their employees. This has created a lot of focus on festival gifting by organizations. To help organizations navigate through this challenging process, we have put together this guide to festival gifting for employees:
Traditionally, organizations have gifted items such as sweets, dry fruits, snacks, or even small appliances to their employees.
Now, items such as chocolate boxes, gift vouchers, and electronics are increasingly replacing them.
Organizations find it challenging to manage the process of festival gifting due to various reasons:
Employees need to get the gifts in time for the festival.
Budgets are usually tight in most organizations.
Employees have different preferences.
Getting the right gift to the right place at the right time is always a challenge.
The preference of each employee is different based on age, gender, marital status, ethnicity, personality, and other personal factors.
Hence it is a nightmare for the organization to come up with a scalable solution to festival gifting.
Small organizations find it difficult to identify, negotiate with vendors, and manage the entire process due to low scale.
Larger organizations face challenges of big numbers and geographical dispersion of their workforce.
This gets further complicated as many employees are working from home, often from smaller places.
There is a lot of pressure on HR and Admin Teams, given the visibility and importance of festival gifting,
To top it all, even a single lapse gets highlighted and draws considerable flak from the employees. and the management.
Organizations understand that festival gifting is a great way to enhance employee experience and create emotional bonding with employees.
Given its importance for the organizations, they must manage as well as possible.
Here’s a guide to festival gifting that is simple and easy to implement:
Since the timing is critical, organizations need to start planning for it well in advance, possibly a few months before.
Firstly, they need to get the necessary budgetary approvals and start identifying the right vendors to partner with.
Apart from budgets, they need to consider other financial implications such as taxation, etc.
One of the biggest challenges is to ensure that employees feel happy and satisfied with the gifts they receive.
Hence, the best way to ensure this is by providing choices to the employees in selecting their gifts.
For example, giving gift vouchers useable at multiple retail stores or online shopping websites is a great option.
These gift vouchers provide employees with the freedom of choice when compared with specific items such as home appliances, gadgets, or beauty/ wellness products.
In earlier days employees would lug home an appliance that they would have received as a festival gift. Or even a big box of sweets!
However, physical gifts can be easily lost, misplaced, or even pilfered.
Organizations need to look at gifting options that ensure the convenience of the employees.
Organizations should consider using an online platform for managing their festival gifting programs.
Such platforms provide employees with multiple options for gifts within a certain budget range.
Platforms such as HiFives provide options for hundreds of gift vouchers of popular brands, delivered electronically.
This ensures both freedom of choice and convenience for employees.
Organizations can use these platforms not only for festival gifting but also for employee rewards and recognition throughout the year.
Festival gifting is an important activity for any organization looking to build a stronger connect with its employees.
This guide to festival gifting for employees can help organizations manage the process smoothly with minimum administrative overheads and operational hiccups.
Lead author: Sagar Chaudhuri, the Co-Founder and CEO of HiFives. He is an HR Tech Evangelist with over 25 years of experience in the corporate world and entrepreneurship. In the past, Sagar has worked with companies such as Genpact, Infosys, and ICICI Bank, in leadership roles. He has an engineering degree from IIT Kharagpur and an MBA from IIM Lucknow. Connect on LinkedIn
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