Best Remote Workplace Employee Gifts $20 to $150 for New Hires, Anniversaries & Awards
Are you looking for creative and budget workplace employee gifts for remote new hires, anniversaries, employee awards, and life celebrations such as baby showers and wedding engagements? I’m an HR Leader in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I’ve curated an experience for you to copy my ideas, templates, and canva designs…for free! Ok, the gifts cost of course, but I’ve made everything else easy-peasy.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts $20
Why did I curate this budget workplace employee gifts experience for you for a remote workforce? I was recently tasked with revamping an employee rewards and recognition program and finding great gifts for that, as well as for new hires to welcome them to the company. Upon immediate online search, I realized there are a ton of companies curating workplace employee gifts, and a lot of them are beautiful… but they’re all fluff.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts $20
Most of these online workplace employee gifts companies cost more, and you receive much less. They also don’t focus on the remote workplace. Given that I was doing this on a budget, I wanted to give our employees more bang for our buck, and I believed I could do this with (1) providing them a better employee experience, (2) saving our company money, (3) and no, it shouldn’t be much more of a time investment. Maybe there was a little more work on the front end for me, but I’ve saved you most of that by developing these experiences below for you. In short, steal my ideas on what I created for our remote workplace employee gifts program, and save yourself a lot of time.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts: New Hires
The first place I started with revamping our employee rewards and recognition program was with our new hire gifts for our remote workplace. The best place to start with the employee experience is from the very beginning, and to maintain or exceed employee expectations, vs to recoup debt.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts for New Hires
Our company used to curate little boxes with pens, notebooks, snacks etc before the pandemic. Now that our company is a remote company with a remote workforce, this model isn’t realistic anymore as the expectation would be for employees to house boxes of materials in their homes in the bay area, which are usually small, in order to ship these out. It’s also not an effective use of time since new hires are one of the highest volumes of employee gifts.
So, we asked ourselves, what’s a new hire gift that:
Doesn’t require a remote employee to house product in their home; A new hire gift that comes from a product/service where something can be shipped directly to the new hire?
Isn’t a gift card, because those are impersonal?
Can be done on a global scale, since we have employees around the world?
Takes into account cultural differences around the world… something everyone loves?
Is easy and time efficient for our operations and HR team to manage for new hire gifts?
The average cost is under $25 with shipping?
The answer we came up with… Coffee! Or, more broadly… Caffeine.
Here’s how we managed the new hire gift process for our remote workplace in a few easy steps:
Ask new hires if they prefer coffee, tea, hot chocolate in their onboarding questionnaire. We actually included matcha too as it was being requested quite a bit. We use Rippling as our HRIS, which I highly recommend. I’ve used Rippling at two different jobs and it’s remarkable (they so happen to offer a $100 Amazon Gift Card for taking a demo if you’re interested). In Rippling, you can set it up to easily ask employees questions like their T-Shirt size, dietary restrictions etc… and if they prefer coffee or tea before starting day one!
On the new hire’s first week of employment with the company, send them an email with one of these two free Canva images, letting them know to expect something in the mail. If the new hire receives the employee gift, but they have no idea where it came from, it is moot.
Go back into Rippling or your HRIS, where the new hire entered in their employee information such as their home address, which should be accurate, because they’re a new hire. Order the coffee or tea per the new employee’s selection. Voila!
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts for New Hires Under $20
To receive these free Canva Templates without the watermark, sign up here! You can change the colors to your company colors, and even add your company logo.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts $20
How has the employee feedback been regarding receiving Coffee or Tea as a new hire gift?
It’s been wildly successful, with a ton of positive feedback from employees. Because they aren’t in an office anymore, employees don’t receive office coffee. They now supply all of that for themselves. It’s just a little something to express “we know we work in a remote environment now which is different, and we recognize and welcome you to the team.”
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts Under $150
Here’s a list of some of the countries I’ve found coffee, tea, cocoa/ hot chocolate and matcha options for. Please note, when ordering a single bag of coffee or a box/tin of tea, you will likely pay $4-$6 shipping as you’ll never reach the free shipping minimum at these smaller amounts. I hope this new hire gift idea saves you time and saves your company money!
Four Sigmatic Coffee - 10% OFF with code THEBOSSYSAUCE
United States
Canada
United Kingdom
Germany
United States
David’s Tea - I highly recommend they sale page
United States
Canada
Harrods Tea - I highly recommend The Georgian Blend
United Kingdom
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts: Employee Anniversaries - Year One
If there’s one time to truly recognize an employee, it’s with their loyalty to the company with their employment anniversary date. We like to call these “Workiversaries” in my remote office.
I’m going to keep the employee anniversaries gift recommendation simple with regards to a remote workforce and a budget conscious environment. There are tons of ideas out there. The one we came up with was plants, and I love love love plants from The Sill. I have 5 plants from The Sill in my home, so maybe I’m a little biased. I don’t recommend plants from The Sill for higher tenured years, but they’re fantastic for year one.
Here’s the thing about real plants for gifts for year one employee anniversaries. Plants are a gift for both the home, and the office. They send the message “we know your office is your home…we get it. Thank you for sharing this experience with us. Here’s something to make that experience more pleasant.” Plants provide oxygen and clean the air.
When I watched the Spaceship Earth documentary on Netflix a couple years ago about Biosphere 2, one major thing really resonated with me. We’ve heard since elementary school science that plants provide oxygen. That documentary showcased that plants and organic matter inside of a closed space really can make or break the breathing experience. Of course that place was closed off, had more plants, was a different size… I could go on and one. Even the Briiv Air Purification System uses plants as a source of air purification in the home.
We all know, flowers die after 5-14 days. Maybe a handful of employees will kill off the plants. Let’s be real. But the experience of unveiling a plant, placing it on your deck or near your remote workspace, and breathing some cleaner air throughout your day… It sends the right message and it probably helps with health and wellness, even just a little. To answer any concerns you may have, the delivery boxes are packed well and have a specific design for delivering plants safely in the mail.
Because The Sill has notecards in their ordering process, all you simply have to do for your remote workplace anniversary gifts from The Sill is…
Pick out a plant from The Sill
Fill out the Note Card with a simple message
Wait for positive employee responses to come in
Here are my favorite low maintenance plants from The Sill for Employee Anniversary Gifts under $75 total for the remote workplace:
The ZZ Plant - Bright to low light and water every 2-3 weeks
Philodendron Green - Bright to low light and water every 1-2 weeks
Monstera Deliciosa - Bright to low light and water every 1-2 weeks
**Please Note, not all plants are available all the time - If the page shows the plant is unavailable, click another option or poke around their website.
*** Also, shipping is not included and is $10 and this is a US only company.
**** You may have also heard of Bloomscape - I had a bad online experience trying to order a plant a few years ago. I tried one more time and realized they had no note cards. They are an option, so I’m including them, with my personal opinion that I prefer The Sill as I’ve ordered over 50 plants without a hiccup.
Remote Workplace Employee Gifts: Employee Anniversaries - Tenured Employees
I’m going to loop back and reiterate the statement I made at the top of my post. There are so many curated workplace employee gifts online, but they’re all fluff. You could spend $200 and end up with a leather pencil cup, a notebook, a bottle of fancy looking sparkling cider and it may look pretty because you’re spending a lot of that money on tissue paper and a nice box too. Most of that isn’t meaningful, and it’s fluff.
Remote Employee Gifts Under $150
I’ve curated a fantastic remote workplace employee gift for anniversaries that are more like year 3, or year 5. Please, steal my idea and my Canva templates and edit, alter, or completely take and use this idea for yourself!
Remote Employee Gifts Under $20
To get this FREE card to give to your employees without the watermark, sign-up here and the free templates for the cards for both new hires and work anniversaries will be emailed to you immediately.
First off, make things easy on yourself. You don’t need to have different employee gifts for anniversary years like 3 and 5. You just need to make sure you change the employee gifts every 18 months if they’re 2 years apart so no one receives the same gift twice. Boom… Mind blown, hu?
The messaging for our employees is:
Thank you for shedding light where we needed light, adding color where we needed color, and for sharing your bright ideas over the last X years. We hope to continue to grow more together over the years to come.
You can download the Free Canva printable gift notes by clicking here, and they’ll be sent to your email. I’ve included a color version, and a black and white, as we all have different printing capabilities as a remote workforce. The messaging will page sense once you see what the gifts are, so follow along below…
Tenured Employee Anniversary Gift Idea for Under $150 Total:
Philips Hue 2 Pack Color & White Smart Light Bulbs - Before you think “light bulbs?” these are sexy. They can be controlled by an Alexa or Google Assistant, as well as by your smartphone. I have 5 in my home and we have custom lights for movie watching, dinner time, sexy-time (haaay) and everything in-between.
Marley’s Monsters Unpaper Towel - These are rainbow colored, matching our theme… and if you haven’t caught on yet, our mission is to stick to wellness, tech, and mission driven products. This one hits the mark! You can also buy them on Grove, and if you’re new to Grove, you’ll receive a free house cleaning gift set worth around $50.
Mrs Meyers Clean Day Lavender Candle - Not everything in the box has to be worth a ton. Here’s a beautiful, neutral smelling and natural candle for under $5. You can also buy this item on Grove too.
Raaka Vegan Chocolate Bars - I like to add one sweet thing, and this covers most all dietary restrictions and 99% of people like chocolate. This is a 3 pack. I find it highlights the chocolate more if you only include one per employee anniversary gift box. If you’re shipping in the middle of summer, skip the chocolate and go with something less melty.
SeedPop - These are adorable! You unwrap like a lollipop, plant upside down in the ground, and the theme of the SeedPop will sprout a surprise smattering of beautiful plants! They’re sold in packs of 3 on Amazon. I recommend putting one in each employee anniversary gift box to highlight them. They’re also sold individually on grove, at a much better price I might add.
This whole employee anniversary gift box for our remote workplace can be curated for around $125, with a personalized notecard. Because the items will have to be shipped to someone that will need to gather them together, and ship out, please add the shipping costs of a medium USPS box onto the cost. All in, it’s $150. Not too shabby for such a thoughtful remote workplace employee anniversary gift box!
Still want an out of the box solution?
If after reading this post, you really just want an out of the box solution with the same coffee concept, I highly recommend KnackShops.com.
