Indeed do many things come to pass

Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/interview-with-someone-who-works-in-the-corporate-gifts-industry.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=36194

In the comment section on a recent letter from someone whose coworkers were upset about her work anniversary gift, there was a lot of discussion about corporate gift programs. I heard from a reader who works for one of the larger companies that organizes these programs, and they generously offered to answer questions about it. Here’s our interview.

To start, what are these programs all about, and how do rewards and recognition companies like yours fit in?

Rewards and recognition (when done well!) helps companies build better cultures, decrease attrition, and improve employee engagement. The idea is, if you appreciate employees for their work regularly, they will be happier, more loyal, and more productive. Some vendor names you might find surprising: Tiffany’s used to offer service awards, Hallmark offered recognition before that part of the business was bought, Jostens owns a recognition company. Rolex used to be a very popular service award or retirement award, but a few years ago, they stopped doing B2B sales (it was diluting their brand). No recognition vendors can now offer Rolexes — and some companies find that very upsetting.

The rewards and recognition industry tries to relieve the burden of administration from HR and automates the program flow, so it’s easy for employees to use. Rewards and recognition software generally has two components (and companies might do one or both):

A. Performance recognition. This is focused on publicly recognizing employees for good work. A user can write up a note thanking a coworker for something (things like “thanks for covering while I was out” or “good job on that presentation”), attach an amount of points to that note, and then send it off. The note is then published on a feed so other coworkers can see it, like it, and comment on it. The points go into a bank, so users can save them up and redeem them from a catalog of items.

B. Service awards. This recognizes employees for how long they have been with the company, usually starting at five years and every five years after. One of the easiest/most common approaches is a points deposit. Say you are celebrating five years at your company. On your anniversary, you would get an email that says something like, “Congrats on five years! Here’s to another five!” and a notification that 500 points have been deposited into your points bank. This could be a specific bank that now has 500 points for you to redeem in the catalog, or the points could be deposited into your recognition bank, so you can use your service award and recognition points together to redeem for something bigger.

What challenges do you see companies run into most often with corporate gifts and rewards/recognition programs?

I think the biggest challenge is a lack of commitment. There are all sorts of proven benefits to these types of programs (lowered attrition, improved business outcomes, etc.) and some companies think they can get those benefits by just purchasing a software. They don’t want to spend the time or money on creating a comprehensive strategy — and since every company culture is so different, you really need to make a strategy that focuses on what’s right for your specific organization.

So instead, they end up wasting money on a platform that doesn’t get used, because no one knows it exists or how to use it. And because they’re not getting the ROI they want, they get mad and fire their vendor, move onto another one, and have the same issues because they won’t commit, all while losing money on the software shift and confusing any users who were engaging.

Executive buy-in is also a big issue. I can’t tell you how many times a CHRO has been ready to sign a contract when the CEO comes in and shuts everything down. Along with that is making sure they stay bought-in. A lot of larger organizations with long-standing programs have started questioning the value of recognition programs. When the economy gets rough, this is usually one of the first things to get cut, as it seems extraneous. But companies who kept up with recognition during the pandemic saw improved morale and increased employee loyalty.

What do you think are some of the “secrets of success” of the companies that do it well?

1. Communicating to employees not only that this program is available, but also offering info on the best way to use it. This might be paper guides, email reminders, formal training — whatever is best for that company’s culture.

2. Having a reasonable budget. Being stingy will make employees feel less appreciated than if there had been no recognition program at all! Healthcare is notorious for having tiny budgets. Imagine working endless shifts saving people’s lives and being thanked with nothing more than a branded pen.

3. Celebrating a variety of events. Not everyone will end up being recognized for everything, but celebrating different things with different types of rewards (company milestones, service awards, promotions, personal life events, department wins, company challenges, etc.) will give each employee more chances to feel appreciated.

4. Letting everyone send recognition. Some companies set their programs up so only managers can give recognition and/or points. So if your manager doesn’t see or hear about something great you did, you will never receive recognition for it. If peers can instead recognize each other, then the volume of recognition greatly increases. And so does employee goodwill!

5. Ensuring recognition doesn’t feel transactional. We all know the feeling when you receive a birthday card and it’s a bunch of signatures vs. receiving one with actual, thoughtful notes. Companies with expectations of how recognition should be done have more sincere interactions. For example, if their policy is to mail someone a plaque for the 10th anniversary, the item becomes just another thing to set on the shelf and forget about. But if they instead present the plaque in person to the celebrant, maybe along with a handwritten card from the manager or by sharing some achievements with the team (if the person enjoys being recognized publicly), then that plaque feels a lot more significant.

Essentially, throw enough money at it that it makes an impact, but throw that money strategically.

One thing that comes up over and over on Ask a Manager is that there’s no one gift that everyone will like (except for more money and time off!). As soon as one person mentions a gift that sounds amazing to them, someone else will be ready to let them know they’d hate it. How can companies navigate that thoughtfully?

Offering a variety of options is the best way to do this. Let’s say the company is celebrating their hundred year anniversary. Rather than giving everyone the same branded jacket, the company could instead offer a few different types of jackets, maybe a vest and pullover, and then other things that could be branded, like a cooler, a Bluetooth speaker, a suitcase, an expensive blanket, etc. and throw in some things that aren’t branded at all! (I personally love a branded item, but I know many, many people hate it.)

What’s something that’s surprised you about working in this field? And/or something that you think would surprise people outside of it to learn about?

Receiving recognition points counts as reportable income, so you get taxed on it. Seeing that on your paystub without knowing why its there can be kind of upsetting (one of those things that I don’t think companies tell their employees about). It’s especially upsetting if it ends up being a burden on you, rather than your employer. That’s why R+R providers recommend organizations “gross up,” i.e. if you are awarded $100 of points, the company actually pays something like $140 for those points, so the employee receives the full $100 and the $40 goes to covering the income tax portion.

Service/milestone awards have their own tax situations. In the U.S. and Canada, if a milestone award meets certain requirements, there is no income tax on it.

Also, this industry is cutthroat, which is funny for an industry ostensibly focused on helping create positive employee experiences. The R+R industry is not super large and there’s maybe five really big players. Lots of employees move between these different companies, so plenty of company secrets get passed around.

It is always funny when the executive of one company goes on LinkedIn and writes a rant about another company being mean to them, or stealing their idea, or spreading rumors. It happens more than you would expect!

When you say companies run into trouble because they don’t commit to a good strategy, what does that look like in reality (when it’s done well and when it’s done badly)?

First, most important thing: recognition cannot be used as a substitute for a living wage, raises, bonuses, or benefits. You have to first make sure you are adequately providing those things, or else spending money on recognition (especially when your employees are paycheck to paycheck) is only going to breed resentment.

Signs a company has a good strategy in place:

• Users know how to access the software and use it regularly
• Can find worthwhile items to redeem for in the catalog
• Career anniversary gifts/trophies become a point of pride, rather than a useless tchotchke
• Employee satisfaction scores usually increase

Signs a company has a bad/no strategy in place:

• Users don’t know about the software or can’t access it easily
• Limited users can send recognition
• Budgets are so low that recognition points are quickly spent
• Point values or gift options are so low that it is offensive
• There is no company culture around recognition, so people feel disappointed when their work is not recognized or their anniversary goes by without comment
• Career anniversaries are non-existent or don’t start for a long time, like year 10
• There are no regular notifications nudging employees to take action, such as giving recognition, approving recognition, or redeeming points (companies like to turn these off)
• Holidays, employee appreciation day, and company milestones are not celebrated

Example of bad strategy: My sister was at her job for three years before realizing she’d received hundreds of points she could redeem. There was no communication on the software (that it existed, how to access it, or how to use it). Giving recognition is limited to managers and above. Since she works different hours from her manager, they rarely saw her work and thus could not recognize it in person. For her first anniversary, she received a tiny bonus and doesn’t know what people receive on other anniversaries.

The company is spending money on this software, but probably receiving very little ROI. In this case, they’d probably have better ROI if they forewent the software and gave that money directly to employees via raises, increased PTO, or better benefits.

You mentioned stingy gifts, and I hear about this all the time (like a hospital that gave its doctors hospital socks for Christmas or a company that gave everyone “cheaply-printed gratitude journals” during Covid). Any insight into what these companies are thinking?! It seems like it should be obvious that really cheap gifts are going to harm morale more than if they did nothing at all.

I think this is the same mindset that leads to giving overworked employees a pizza party rather than rewarding them with bonuses. It’s that paternalistic “They should be grateful for anything I give them” sort of feeling. The people making these decisions can be very out of touch about what actually matters to employees.

How to fix that? When coming up with the recognition strategy, companies should involve employee feedback (surveys, focus groups, town halls, etc). They should also keep doing this (some vendors have features to help with this) throughout the program and adjusting as needed.

You recommended letting peers send recognition. Do companies worry that if they set it up that way, people will abuse it? Does that ever happen in reality?

Yes, they worry about abuse, and no, it doesn’t really happen that often. There’s ways to flag if recognition looks suspicious; you can put checks in place like all recognition has to be approved by a manager, and you can put caps on how much recognition people can give and/or receive.

I think this worry comes from that same mentality that leads to sick leave policies requiring a doctor’s note; some employers think their employees are unruly children that need to be managed with a firm hand rather than responsible adults you can trust.

Does your company do amazing employee gifts for you and your coworkers? I feel like the expectations must be very high!

My company loves doing gifts. There are some events that have the same gift every year, but they go all in for big milestone events. There was a large anniversary a few years before I started and people still talk about the items they got. One person uses the collapsible wagon they ordered all the time, and I am jealous whenever they wheel it into the office.

They really commit for service awards, and I’ve never heard anyone complain about their experience.

They also do gifts for Employee Appreciation Day, and sometimes they miss the mark, but the gesture is always appreciated. I have received more water bottles than anyone could possibly need, but they’re always high-quality, so I can always find a friend or family member who would like one.

The post interview with someone who works in the corporate gifts industry appeared first on Ask a Manager.

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Posted by Ask a Manager

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/demoting-a-dedicated-employee-asking-for-more-vacation-time-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=36121

It’s five answers to five questions. Here we go…

1. We have to demote a really dedicated manager

I’m involved in a small, local nonprofit animal shelter. I started as a volunteer and am now an officer of the board. Two years ago, our very competent office manager quit. After two crash-and-burn failed hires, one of our part-time kennel help wanted to try to step up into the position. On a trial basis. Over a year ago. And while she was never officially given the job, things just … limped along. Kasie is awesome in many ways, great with people and incredible with the animals. But she lacks the initiative and judgement to successfully fill this role. I will add she is open about having ADHD, which (from what I’ve read) is probably the source of her shortcomings.

For the last year or more, we have been operating with the board president fulfilling way too many of the manager responsibilities for Kasie, which is not sustainable. One of our long-time board members, Jane, is willing to step into the job and has been hired with a tentative start date soon.

Kasie is a very dedicated employee, and being manager of our animal shelter is way more than just a paycheck to her. I’m comfortable stating this is her dream job. She knows Changes Are Coming and has voiced she has no plans to leave, but I want to make this change as smooth as possible.

I guess I’m looking for advice on moving someone who is dedicated to a cause to step down to a lower position and accept a new manager. I’m also wondering if ADHD is (or should be) a factor in dealing with any of this.

Has someone been giving Kasie feedback all along and is she aware that the board didn’t think she was performing the role successfully? If so, this is a lot easier because it will be a logical extension of that conversation, which you can frame as, “As you know, we’ve been concerned about X and Y and need someone in this role who can do Z. The work has been suffering in ABC ways and we’re now at the point where we need to bring in someone to run things differently. We’d like you to move to focusing on DEF while Jane takes over the manager role.”

But if no one has been giving Kasie clear feedback, this is messier! You’d still use the basic framing above (without the “as you know”) and be candid about the ways in which things haven’t been working … but in that case, the board should recognize its own role in making this harder, and use this as impetus to commit to being more forthright about concerns in the future.

Also — make sure you’re not hiring Jane just because she stepped up, or you risk the same situation you had with Kasie. The board needs to be really clear with Jane (and with itself) about what doing the job well looks like and needs to be more hands-on about ensuring the new staffing decision is working out.

2. Our training about hostile work environments feels like a hostile work environment

I work at a small but thriving business with a small group of employees at headquarters (myself among them) and a larger contingent of contract workers at other locations.

Our city and state require all employers to adopt a sexual harassment prevention policy and to provide employees with sexual harassment prevention training. While most places I’ve worked complete this requirement using an online curriculum consisting of pre-recorded videos and multiple choice questions, this business teaches it live via video call with a member of the C-suite who is not in charge of HR. (In fact, as far as I can tell, we don’t have a dedicated HR team; HR-related duties are instead spread across a number of directors and execs along with their other duties). This class happens in a video call with the executive (“Kyle”) and about 20 other participants at a time, cameras are required to be on, and he will call on anyone and everyone at some point during the class to answer questions.

I’m sure this format works fine for some people, but I find it deeply uncomfortable. His blunt delivery on some of these topics leaves a really bad taste in my mouth (“Pop quiz, if nobody else is in the office and two coworkers at an equal level decide to have sex on their desk, is it technically harassment? Jane, you’ve been quiet, I bet you have an opinion on this”). There are also scenarios in this training that are sadly relevant to my personal history in a way that other people in the office are definitely aware of (and to a certain extent Kyle is also aware of), so I feel really exposed having my face on camera for that — or worse, being called on to answer pop quizzes that hit too close to home. I’m sure other people aren’t thinking about me as much as I am in those moments, but after the last session I wound up in the bathroom crying and I really don’t want to repeat that experience.

I reached out to Kyle and my manager and asked if this year I could fulfill the requirement with a pre-recorded version of the training instead (the city provides one on their website free of charge). I used the word “accommodation” and directly referenced why this training is difficult for me without getting into sordid details. I immediately received a phone call from Kyle stating that he does not believe the training provided by the city government and authorized by the state are legally compliant with city and state regulations (both city and state websites say it is), but further that he doesn’t want to accommodate requests for alternate training because “holding these trainings in-house is a huge source of revenue for the business.” (Your guess is as good as mine about what that means. If I had to guess, I bet we pass the cost of training the contractors on to their companies as part of the services they contract us for.)

This is bonkers, right? Is it legal? I did ask him if he was saying that the revenue stream was more important than the risk of creating a hostile work environment during a training about hostile work environments, and he did then say I could take the state-and-city authorized version instead, so my immediate problem is solved. But he emphasized that I shouldn’t tell anyone else because he doesn’t want people thinking they have other options, and I’m wondering if that’s as legally shady as it feels.

It’s weird, but as long as they offer accommodations as required under the Americans with Disabilities Act, they’re not breaking any law. It’s odd that they want to create their own (apparently badly done) training rather than using the ready-made one offered by the city (and even odder that they’re trying to claim the city’s training wouldn’t comply with city regulations), but given Kyle’s remark about it being a source of revenue, I’d bet you’re right that they charge the contractors’ companies for it. (Even that doesn’t fully make sense, but what else could it be? Is unqualified Kyle out there selling this to completely separate companies too?!)

The part about him telling you not to tell your colleagues that you’re getting this accommodation is sketchy — you have a legally protected right to talk with coworkers about working conditions (unless you’re a supervisor, in which case you don’t) — but the rest of it is legal.

3. If I’m graduating this spring, when should I apply for jobs?

I have a question about applying for jobs as a college senior. I can imagine that higher level jobs will have long hiring processes, but for entry-level office jobs is it okay to apply now, even though graduation is four months away? Or is it better to wait until closer to when a person will actually be available to start working?

Yes, start applying now. You might be too early for some jobs, but for a lot of them, the hiring process could easily take four months (if not longer).

4. Are there really so many nonprofit jobs?

You reference not-for-profit vs for-profit sectors a lot. I used to think I understood what nonprofit work was … like the Cancer Society or Doctors Without Borders or something. But you reference it so often, I’m beginning to wonder …. can there really be that many nonprofit jobs the U.S., or am I misunderstanding what it is?

Your international audience thanks you.

Nonprofits accounted for 12.8 million jobs in the U.S. — nearly 10% of private-sector employment — in 2022, the latest year with data available from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, and there are 1.9 million registered nonprofits in the U.S.

But nonprofits aren’t just the type of advocacy or service-based charities you’re thinking of; they also include arts organizations, museums, trade associations, religious institutions, private foundations, fraternal organizations, chambers of commerce, civic leagues, and lots more.

5. How to ask for more vacation time instead of a raise

I’ve been with my employer for the better part of a decade. I’m a senior-level employee and have a lot of capital, get great reviews, etc. The work is challenging and rewarding and we help a lot of people. We aren’t expected to put in crazy hours, but I often feel like I’m close to my limit in terms of what I can reasonably do without sacrificing quality, and the work can be very draining. My employer is a small-ish but growing local business.

I’m in the U.S. and employees who have been there a few years get just over four weeks’ PTO annually, only some of which can roll over. We don’t have separate sick leave, so PTO covers illness and vacation.

What I want more than anything is more time off. I’d happily forgo a salary increase for a few years if I could get more PTO. I’m wondering how I can try to negotiate for this, what arguments I could use, and how much to ask for. I’m sure they won’t love the idea but I don’t think there’s any downside to asking, and if I was successful, it would be incredible. I’m even open to periodic unpaid leave. I just want more time to rest.

The next time it would be appropriate to ask for a raise, ask for this instead. You can be pretty straightforward about it: “The thing that I really want right now more than a raise is additional PTO. Would you be open to giving me two additional weeks of PTO per year in lieu of a raise?”

I picked two weeks because it’s a good solid chunk while still being reasonable, and also gives them room to come back with one week if they balk at two. You could also run the math on how many weeks of pay a typical raise there would be equivalent to, and factor that into your thinking too.

The post demoting a dedicated employee, asking for more vacation time, and more appeared first on Ask a Manager.

https://www.askamanager.org/2026/02/demoting-a-dedicated-employee-asking-for-more-vacation-time-and-more.html

https://www.askamanager.org/?p=36121