10 Gifts The People You Work With Will Actually Appreciate

By Chelsea Babin

It’s the season of gift giving and, sometimes, that extends to your coworkers, your bosses, or your other people in your professional network. If you want to give them a gift that they’ll actually appreciate, this list will help you out!

1. A Virtual Assistant: Give the gift of delegating by finding a virtual assistant to help your coworkers, boss, or someone in your professional network. This will help the people you work with get more done with the hours they have in each day and they’ll get to avoid menial tasks that aren’t necessarily in their wheelhouse of expertise but need to be done regardless. Try using Fancy Hands or eaHelp to find a great virtual assistant to hire as their gift!

2. An Online Course for a Skill They’ve Expressed Interest in: If you’re getting a present for someone in your professional network or one of your coworkers who has expressed interest in learning a new, work-related skill why not gift them an online course? Online courses are relatively inexpensive at Coursera or you could sign them up for a coding boot camp like Thinkful or DesignLab if you’re willing to splurge.

3. Premium Versions of their Favorite Online Tools: From EverNote to LinkedIn to Spotify, there are a ton of online tools that people love that offer premium versions. This could be a great gift to give someone you work with because you’ll probably know what their favorite online tools are and, when they’re listening to their favorite music, getting organized, or making great professional connections they’ll think of you!

4. Industry Related Subscription: If the people you work with are tech nerds, you can get them a subscription to Wired. If they’re interested in local events and business news, you can subscribe them to local papers and magazines. Very few people bother to sign themselves up for newspaper or magazine subscriptions any more so this could be a great, fairly inexpensive gift idea! They’ll appreciate that you know them well enough to know what they’re interested in and they may actually enjoy having physical copies of publications rather than having to read everything online.

5. Group Exercise Class or Gym Membership: If the people you’ve worked with have expressed interest in getting more physically fit and you want a good excuse to bond with your coworkers, bosses, or other people in your professional network you can kill two birds with one stone by gifting them passes to a group exercise class or a gym membership. You can go exercise with the people you work with, de-stress, and bond outside of the confines of the office.

6. Gift Card to Their Favorite Lunch Spot: If you notice your coworkers or boss often ordering lunch from the same lunch spot, get them a gift card! The next time they order they’ll think of you with gratitude.

7. Leadership or Career Consulting: If someone in your professional network is hitting a wall or stuck in a rut at work, why not buy them a strategy session with a career consultant? They can figure out what their strengths are, plan out their ideal career trajectory, and create a game plan on the next actionable step to take. Nothing says I care about you like helping them figure out how to be successful in their career for years to come! Plus, at websites like Muse Coach, you can schedule one-of career coaching sessions and they can decide if they want to continue them in the future.

8. Extra Special Office Supplies: You know those people who have their favorite pens or love writing things down? Those are the people you can gift office supplies to and have them actually appreciate it. Generally, office supplies are a rather boring gift but, if you know that someone you work with really likes certain, special office supplies you have free reign to give those as a gift!

9. A Fun Group Outing: Kick back and connect with the people you work with by gifting them a fun group outing! It doesn’t have to be work related, although tickets to a local industry conference could be a decent gift too, but it does have to be something you know they’d enjoy doing. Giving the gift of an experience and getting the chance to strengthen your connections with the people you work with is a great idea!

10. A Charitable Donation to a Cause They Care About: If you work with people who care about their community and the world around them, consider gifting them a charitable donation to a cause you know they’re passionate about.

Stop giving generic candles to the people you work with and start giving them one of these 10 gifts that they’ll actually appreciate! Your coworkers, bosses, and professional network connections will notice that you’re thinking out of the box and they’ll truly be grateful.