(Untitled)

[stakebait]

Hi Guys, this is my first holiday season as a boss and I am trying to figure out how to handle it, hoping a quick poll might help. For the gift choices, assume they're all worth about the same amount (and none of them huge).

Thanks!

Poll Santa like a boss

Comments

[noire]

J has been a boss for many many many years. I think he gives small gifts of food (generally nice chocolate) to staff, but not the professionals who work for him, some time over the holidays and also when he returns from travel. Pretty much always chocolate, come to think of it.

I generally get nice chocolates for staff in our program for holidays and when they've done something super special for me. But *small* boxes of really nice chocolates...and I'm considered really weird for doing so. OTOH, I'm in academia where the rules are different.

[stakebait]

Thanks!

[kate_nepveu]

I give holiday gifts to the support staff (my secretary and the administrative pool that does things like mail and copying). Chad gives a gift to the Physics department secretary. We don't get gifts from anyone.

I would say, if giving a gift, durable thing you specifically know they would like (my secretary really likes butterflies), then food, then a gift card. And on the holiday they celebrate.

[stakebait]

Thanks! Sadly, we don't have support staff.

I have a much better sense of what one employee likes in terms of durable gifts than the other one. And with only two who work closely together (and with me) I think i am better off giving them the same thing rather than two different things, even of the same value, one of which might be more of a hit than the other.

[zortified]

Food or drink works fine if you know for sure someone's dietary restrictions. Otherwise, a gift card is more useable.

I'd feel awkward if my boss gave me a gift and not others on my immediate team, but if others not on my team didn't get gifts, I'd be fine. (I have a boss and a supervisor, and my boss is the supervisor of my supervisor, so it can get complicated.)

The one thing I would NOT do is give a holiday card and no gift. If you can't give gifts, don't give cards because then it emphasizes that you aren't giving gifts and people open the card hoping for a gift card inside and nothing but your signature and they're like "oh, how cheap." ;-)

[stakebait]

That makes sense, and yeah, I'd give to everyone on my team, it's the other teams I was worried about.

[zortified]

As long as other teams have other bosses, it'll be fine. (Whether or not those other bosses give gifts.) Most employees would expect a gift from their boss, but not from someone else's boss.

Although I expect gifts from everyone. But I'm five.

[stakebait]

*grin* those other teams have other bosses. My concern was only, "easy for me to give my two whole employees a little something, if the woman who has 8 can't afford it am I now making her look bad."

[woodwardiocom]

In particular, a boss who gives alcohol as a gift will make me very cranky, and I might refuse it to their face.

[stakebait]

Yeah, I know both of my employees drink alcohol, but our big boss already gives a bottle of wine to each employee, so I don't want to duplicate that.

[redbird]

Food is nice if you're reasonably sure that the person likes it; one year at my last job, we wound up with extra chocolates because a well-meaning vendor had sent some to my boss, who couldn't have them for health reasons.

I checked "gift card," but that was on the theory that it's the closest to giving someone a cash bonus; a gift card for a specific store (such as Starbucks) is less flexible. (A friend of mine got a Starbucks card for something or other and wound up posting to offer it to anyone she knew who actually buys anything there, because she doesn't.)

[stakebait]

Thanks, that makes sense.