Xmas token for team

[FFSWhatToDoNow]

This is my second Xmas with my team, who are all incredibly hard working. There are 14 of them, spread all over the country. Last year I did them each a little gift box with shortbread and chocolates etc but it took a lot of time and effort and cost about £4 each in postage. (I’m paying.)

Looking to simplify this year and just send them each a £10 voucher and handwritten note saying thank you for all their hard work. Question is, which voucher. I’ve done M+S before, but have been boycotting them for years. Tesco doesn’t feel very special. There’s a possibility of redundancies next year and I don’t think John Lewis/Waitrose is very tactful
if they are trying to save money and not buy things.

So where best to get a voucher?

Rather than getting a voucher to a specific shop, can you not get one which they could use at multiple places?

Amazon?

When I bought the M+S ones years ago it was on the basis they could use it for house stuff, clothes, a £10 eat in special meal or nice food they might normally buy.

An Amazon voucher is only going to be good for “stuff” and they might have to pay for postage if not prime members?

I’ve always thought those high street vouchers were dodgy/hard to use?

Boots voucher or else costa

Love to shop vouchers?

Is this coming out of your own pocket? Do you own the business?

I am part of a remote team as an employee and we are getting together on Zoom to do a quiz, perhaps something like that? Low spend and team building.

Just send a £10 note then in a card or a half day extra off work or something!

If you choose a specific shop, its much harder for people who:

• Don't have that shop nearby, don't drive or have to travel miles to get to one
• Say Waitrose/M&S etc. They could buy the similar clothing/food much cheaper at other shops.

Yes, out of my pocket. It’s a charity.

someone else organises a wider team quiz etc. I don’t do Xmas so this is my effort.

We all travel for work so everyone drives.

I’m not at liberty to give them extra time off.

I’m not sending £10 notes through the post!

I actually do think an emailed John Lewis / Waitrose voucher would be ideal.

You’re never going to find a perfect voucher to suit everyone in a large group of people, especially for only £10, so you’ll have to compromise a bit. I wouldn’t go for John Lewis or anywhere else where most products are going to be more than £10. My work always give the high street vouchers and I agree they are hard to use as you have to actually use them in store for most of the shops and I do almost all my shopping online so they're not that practical to me.

To be honest I would probably go with Amazon as it’s something most people will already use and have accounts with and which will you can buy a huge range of things on, including music and film downloads so they don’t even have to spend postage if they don’t want to.

I think they are called high street vouchers. You can get them at the post office, I get one every year from DH family and I've yet to find a shop I couldn't use it in.

I’m not sure if there is a Waitrose in every place. :-/

Posted too soon. I've only ever used them online, you just scratch off the back and enter the details like you would a debit card.

I get these from my workplace and there are only a handful of shops where you can actually use them online, mostly they are in-store only.

I've had so much trouble using One 4 all gift cards, and also those pre-paid credit card ones.

Maybe M&S then? Oh no, you're boycotting them.

Hmm, I'm not sure now.

Costa vouchers? You could get a Christmas card with a mince pie on it or something and say ‘have a mince pie and latte on me’ (or something better… )

Costa ones can be emailed to the recipient

If you have any teammates up north it's likely they don't have one. We don't, and most things are more than £10 in JL. So it's a lovely thought but I might not even end up using it, which seems a waste given that you are putting lots of thought into what might be actually used/appreciates by people.

What about costa/Starbucks/Nero? That's enough money for a few coffees and even people who don't drink coffee probably drink tea or hot chocolate or eat cake.

Its a lovely thing you're doing.

Another one here who would go for Costa

I would also go for Amazon, you can buy most things on there including alcohol, food etc. Most people I know have an Amazon account.

Costa is a good idea actually.

Yes, sorry I did mean one4all.

I've never had any trouble using them but the sheer amount of shops does make you (me) stress about where to spend it!