Tremendous Holiday Gifting Study Finds 75% of Employees Said Holiday Gifts Increased Job Satisfaction, With 46% Saying This Boost Lasts for One Year or More

65% of employees agree that money is most desirable holiday gift

Tremendous, a payouts platform enabling businesses to send money to anyone around the world, announced the results of the Tremendous 2022 Holiday Employee Gifting Study.

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Tremendous 2022 Holiday Employee Gifting Study (Graphic: Business Wire)

Amid the challenging hiring environment of the “Great Reshuffle,” the survey found that 75% of respondents said receiving a holiday gift from their employer increased their job satisfaction, with 46% saying this boost lasts for one year or more. Money was the most desired gift, according to 65% of those surveyed – with 66% saying the $50-$100 range is appropriate. The full results of the survey are available here: trem.us/holidaygifts.

“Amazingly, the Tremendous Holiday Gifting Study found that some companies pay to make their employees feel worse with gifts that are cheap, useless or both,” said Nick Baum, co-founder and CEO of Tremendous. “Given today’s challenges of attracting and retaining talent, employers should take note of the high return on investment for doing holiday gifting right.”

Two-thirds of respondents would be satisfied with a $100 gift, with nearly half experiencing an improved attitude about their job for over a year when employers get the right gift – that’s a cost of 4.8¢ per hour amortized over a year’s full-time work.

“The data is overwhelming: unless you’re gifting money to employees, you’re doing it wrong,” said Ian Floyd, head of research for Tremendous. “Gifts like a turkey, company T-shirt or, in one case, a coupon for 50% off a pretzel, leave employees feeling unappreciated – especially when they knew the company was doing well. If you want to boost morale, don’t saddle people with things they don’t want or need. Send money.”

Tremendous Holiday Gift Study key findings:

• Holiday gifts increase job satisfaction in a significant, lasting way – 75% of respondents said they experience increased job satisfaction after receiving a holiday gift, with 74% saying this boost lasts for three months or more and 46% saying this boost lasts for one year or more.
• Money is the number one desired gift – 65% said they prefer money, whether cash, Visa gift card or money added to their paycheck.
• Most people don’t expect expensive gifts – 66% of respondents said that a gift that falls somewhere within the $50-$100 range is the right amount.

Employers should take note of employee perceptions:

• Holiday gifts are different than performance bonuses – 65% believe everyone at the company should receive a holiday gift. When asked about the value of the gift, only 14% said dollar amount should be specific to each employee, while 34% percent of respondents said everyone at the company should receive the same dollar amount as a holiday gift.
• The wrong gift could make employees feel even worse than receiving nothing – 31% said a bad gift made them feel unappreciated.
• Skip the company swag – Only 2% of employees selected company swag as their top choice, and a mere 18.7% of employees added it to their top five.
• High earners and shorter-tenured employees in western urban areas are harder to please when it comes to holiday gifts – About 15% of those making above $150k expect gifts that cost at least $1,000, while 70% of those in the urban west who had been with their company for four years or less felt unappreciated by the wrong gift.

The white paper, with further analysis, including demographic and industry breakdowns, is available at trem.us/holidaygiftspdf.

Tremendous commissioned a general population survey from Headline Research and L&E Research. The survey was administered to 1,500 U.S. employees across 10 industries in October 2022. Tremendous set quotas of 150 respondents per industry to reach statistical significance per industry. Industries included construction, education and health services, financial, information, leisure and hospitality, manufacturing, professional and business services, public administration, transportation and utilities, and wholesale and retail trade.

About Tremendous

Tremendous is a payouts platform that makes it easy for businesses to send money to people. It offers recipients hundreds of options to get their funds how they want them, anywhere in the world. Thousands of companies, such as Google, Visa, and Harvard, use Tremendous to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in employee bonuses, research incentives, referral rewards, and much more. If it isn’t payroll, send it with Tremendous.

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