Thursday, August 9, 2018

When I gifted Personalized Items To My Employees As Tokens Of Appreciation

In addition to the usual yearly employee appraisal and increments, I wanted to introduce a new concept that will motivate my employees. As I am the head of the marketing department, I wanted to recognize and motivate individuals who are performing well every month.

As this was something informal that I am trying to introduce in my department, I can’t offer any professional advantages or big monetary benefits. But I wanted to make it a tradition that every person in the department looks forward to, something that they take in as pride and works towards.

I was thinking about giving mementos but it felt rather plain and will professional. Therefore, I took the help of a young intern who had been working with us for the past two months to get a unique idea from him as I wanted to keep this new plan under wraps. It was the best thing that I did because he gave me valuable suggestions for the tokens of appreciations that actually increased the performance of the total department in the next few months.

He came up with the idea of presenting personalized gifts with the autograph of the person who won the ‘best marketer of the month’ and showcase it at our office for everyone to see. That was a good idea that I immediately approved it. He then told me to choose any personalized gifts which my employees will love.




I started surfing through the internet and that’s when I came across PrintYo. They had such a vast collection of personalized items, even for corporate people! After going through different items on the website, I decided on some personalized gifts that were right for my purpose – personalised pens, personalized mugs and small personalized signs. 

From this list of items, I sat down with our intern and decided on using the personalized mugs. These personalized mugs had a lot of options to customize and the final look was everything that I wanted!

With the words, ‘The Best Employee of’, I bought 12 sets of cheap personalised mugs ending with the name of all 12 months in the year with the same design.  As it was nearing the month end, I was getting restless and wanted to implement the plan as soon as possible. 

I received the personalized mugs in courier well-packed with a nice sturdy box in just two days. The mugs looked amazing and the colors I had chosen popped right out and I was more than excited to put the plan in place.

As the next day was the last day of the month, I gathered all my employees from the department and told them that a new tradition will be followed from then on. I shared about recognizing those who worked hard and made a difference to the department in the whole month will have a customized mug displayed in the glass cabinet at the entrance with his autograph as a token of appreciation. 




Every employee got excited as it is a really big deal to get one’s name at the entrance! I chose one of the employees for performing exceptionally that month and gave him a mug, and asked him to sign it and place it in the glass cabinet at the entrance of our department. The pride and the happiness that I could see in his face was totally worth it and all other employees too cheered on continuously until he placed the mug in the cabinet.

It was obvious that they liked the concept of customized mugs personalized with their own signature which added more the value to it.

In the coming months, we followed the same tradition every month and in just 3 months, there was a noticeable increase in the performance of the total department! I used to notice people standing outside the glass cabinet and it was obvious that they were wondering when they can have their own mug in the cabinet along with the others.

I never thought that personalized mugs could be put to this kind of use but now I am thinking that this is why you should use personalized mugs for!