This post could either be considered as being slightly late or very early but I thought that it was such a positive and interesting story that it was worth telling now.
A friend of mine who runs a small local business of about ten staff was telling me about their Christmas party. As they are mostly home workers and geographically spread they met in London for a meal. Before they sat down for the meal each was presented with two envelopes one containing £20 and the name of another employee and the other £100. The former was for secret Santa and the latter a Christmas bonus. So far nothing unusual in that. Here’s the twist – they had only an hour to spend the money and any that wasn’t spent had to be given back!
Given that they were in central London off Oxford Street there were certainly no shortage of places to spend it. What’s interesting is that one person couldn’t spend the money feeling that they couldn’t spend under the pressure of time, the others had no problem. Another spent virtually all the money on a single bottle of perfume which others were, apparently, amazed at but I think is just great. This was designed to be a fun way to treat yourself in perhaps a way you might not have an opportunity to do any other time so certainly this purchase fitted the bill.
Secret Santa’s and Christmas bonuses are great ideas for rewarding staff and this twist injected a little more fun into the process. Of course you don’t have to wait until Xmas to do so.
What do you think? Would this be a fun way of rewarding your staff?