Here's the conundrum I face and I'd appreciate your opinion. I work in a VERY small regional office and my employer laid off all admin staff in our office last year. Our office now shares one temp to do clerical stuff like make copies, scanning, filing, mailing, etc. The more technical stuff is spread amongst 6 different people in our home office. Some do more work than others, just based upon what they were assigned to do.
Do I need to get a gift for the temp + all 6 admin staff members? If so, should they all get the same thing? Should the few people who do more stuff for me get more? Or do you think I should just send one big gift basket for the admin staff in the home office to share? What do you think is the appropriate dollar figure for these gifts?
Thanks for your input!
9 comments:
I think gifts are always a nice idea and the holidays are a good time to win favor. Maybe you could do something nice for everyone... like bring in breakfast one day or something like that?
since the temp is in your office, i'd give her a gift - i'd probably limit the gift to $30 or less.
as for the other 6 that are not in your office, maybe a group gift from the regional office would be a better idea. if that's not an appropriate conversation to bring up to your peers, then i'd probably do one gift for all 6 of them - something like a cookie bouquet or some other food gift basket. (thinking). you know what, i think a group gift from the office is the best way to go here.
Tough one. I'm having a similar dilemma. I'm not the owner of the company or the boss of any of the admin staff (as in they are directly supervised by someone else), but they do help me regularly. I want to show appreciation, but not in a way that points out the "power differential" (i.e., we act like we're all friends/colleagues, not like I'm their "superior" because I'm not, and I'd like it to stay that way). Last year I gave them cards and a package of my baking, which they seemd to appreciate (I give the same thing to many friends with whom I don't really exchange gifts). The added wrinkle this year is that our business has expanded, which is great, but that means there are double the office staff, and like yourself, some of whom I work with regularly, but some of whom I barely see/talk to. If I give the ones who help me often something, and not the others, will word get around and will I offend the others? Oy-I don't think I'm helping with your dilemma as much as elucidating my own! Hopefully someone out there can make an insightful comment that can help you and that I can apply appropriately :) Good luck!
I don't know. How often do you actually see the six in the home office? Would you have to mail the gift to them? I think definitely something small for the temp since you see her everyday but as for the home office maybe some baked goods or a gift basket for the whole office? I really don't know.
No. You just buy lots of holiday treats for the 'office staff'. Works out really well. ;)
Course I bought all of them a small box of chocolates $3 ea x 10.
I wouldn't expect a gift that's for sure. I think that gifts are an optional thing. My fellow employees rarely ever gave gifts. It was just nice to get a card from someone i work with.
I agree with "me in millions". Bring in coffee and bagels one morning for the group, or have pizza, or some kind of lunch delivered.
For the office temp, maybe some movie passes.
As a grad student, the administrative assistant in my department makes my life so much easier. Since I don't have much cash to spare, I'm thinking of getting her an extremely small gift ($5-$10)...maybe some chocolates or something.
I bring chocolates! Everyone loves that, especially since they are usually not going on diets until After the holidays :-)
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