Bah humbug! No Gift from the Boss this Year for UK Workers
The last Friday of December is traditionally festive gifting and reward day at businesses up and down the UK.
However, a recent poll by Appreciate Business Services, the home of Love2shop, has found that more than 60% of workers do not expect to receive a gift or reward from their boss this year.
The poll was put to over 4,000 corporate recipients of a Love2shop e-Gift Card – the most popular digital staff reward product among employees in the UK.
It found that, despite having faced a host of unprecedented challenges this year, most workers expect to go home for Christmas empty-handed in 2021.
The impact of the Omicron variant, the cancellation of workplace festive celebrations and the Government’s latest work from home guidance are all key factors influencing businesses and organisations.
Frank Creighton, director of business development at Appreciate Business Services, home of Love2shop, said: “The vast majority of UK businesses are facing huge challenges right now and our latest research reflects this. In our experience, an end of year Christmas reward boosts morale and serves to instil pride, productivity and loyalty in employees. Skipping on gifting is often a false economy. A thank-you from the boss goes a long way, especially in difficult times.
“What a lot of businesses are not aware of is that from a finance perspective, HMRC’s Trivial Benefit allowance also enables businesses to give employees up to £50 in gift vouchers tax-free, so giving staff a gift is a win-win too.”
This time last year, a YouGov poll commissioned by Appreciate Business Services, the UK’s biggest and most popular customer and employee incentives specialists, found that 90 per cent of employees would prefer a cash or gift card instead of an office party.
Gifting staff and colleagues with gift cards and vouchers is not only welcomed by employees, it is preferred.
In a major poll among 10,000 customers in October this year Appreciate found 76% of employees said they prefer a gift card or voucher as a reward and a way of staying loyal to a company or business.