Are you exploring wellness gifts for employees? You’re recognizing that a job is more than just an economic exchange—it's where people spend a significant part of their lives. Expecting employees to stay engaged and motivated in a place that doesn’t value them is unrealistic. It’s the involvement, passion, and creativity of people that drive organizational success. Keep reading to discover employee wellness gifts, alongside wellness activities for employees, as a meaningful way to show appreciation, boost morale, and support well-being.
Benefits of Offering Wellness Gifts
We all love receiving gifts, but implementing specific employee wellness gifts can significantly enhance workplace dynamics by improving morale, reducing stress, and boosting productivity. Here's a list of reasons why you should considering wellness kits for employees:
- Improved Morale: Providing wellness items for employees demonstrates appreciation and fosters a supportive environment. A study by the Incentive Research Foundation found that 40% of employees feel more engaged when their employers recognize their efforts through tangible rewards. This sense of appreciation leads to higher job satisfaction and loyalty.
- Reduced Stress: Wellness gifts that promote relaxation, such as aromatherapy kits or mindfulness journals, can help alleviate stress. The American Institute of Stress reports that 83% of workers suffer from work-related stress, which can lead to burnout, demoralization, and decreased performance.
- Increased Productivity: Investing in employee wellness alsocorrelates with enhanced productivity. The World Health Organization notes that for every $1 invested in employee wellness, there is a $4 return in improved health and productivity.
Tips for Selecting the Ideal Wellness Gifts for Employees
When choosing wellness prizes for employees, it’s essential to consider options that will genuinely resonate with your team. But it's also important to consider the company budget, the purpose of the wellness gifts, and considering personalized options for remote workers. Here are a few key factors to keep in mind:
- Individual Needs: Personalized wellness gifts can make a powerful impact by addressing employees' specific needs. For example, offering a choice between relaxation kits, fitness gear, or mindfulness tools allows each employee to select what aligns best with their personal wellness goals. Customized wellness giveaways for burnout recovery, such as meditation apps or sleep aids, show that the company cares about individual well-being.
- Company Culture: Wellness gifts should align with your company culture. For example, if your company values work-life balance, gifts that encourage relaxation and recovery, like spa kits or guided meditation subscriptions, reinforce this message. For a fitness-oriented culture, consider wellness giveaways like activity trackers or ergonomic office accessories.
- Budget: Select wellness items that fit within your budget but still feel meaningful. Wellness prizes for employees don’t have to be costly to show appreciation—a small, thoughtfully chosen gift can be just as impactful. For instance, affordable or cheap wellness gifts for employees can also be personalized water bottles, yoga mats, or journals are budget-friendly yet valuable wellness items that show consideration for employee health.
Wellness Gift Ideas for Employees
Now that you understand how beneficial it is to select wellness gifts for employees, let's discover 27 original, affordable, and useful gifts to support your team's mental health at work and beyond.
Self-Care and Relaxation Gifts
1. Sleep Hygiene Box
Studies support that in addition to sleep's effects on cognitive skills such as decision-making, attention, and learning, sleep deprivation can also cause an increase in stress and depressive symptoms. Moreover, sleep hygiene can be defined as the rules and methods that we apply to improve our sleep quality. A vast majority of research indicates that good sleep hygiene is associated with better sleep quality, contributing to our overall well-being.
A skeep hygiene box can include: teas, sleep masks, smart lightbulbs, humidifiers, meditation app subscriptions, and cozy socks or blankets.
2. Self-Care Box
Self-care is the fuel for both personal and professional vitality. It's how we find the energy and motivation to make it happen in everything we do in our daily lives. The same applies to our working life. Professional vitality is needed for meeting one's requirements of their role as well as taking up new challenges and initiatives.
A self-care box can take many forms depending on your goal. The first step is to determine how you want these gifts to benefit your employees. Start by understanding your employees' needs. If your goal is to help them pamper themselves, you can include a bath bomb set in the box. If your goal is to help your employees ease the tension in their bodies, you can include a massage voucher.
3. Self-Care Leave Check
Suppose an employee shows up to work with a migraine. They wouldn’t be able to function at their best. Moreover, they would now carry the burden of fulfilling their responsibilities even though it is physically impossible for them to do so carefully. Orignal wellness prizes for employees like a self-care leave check remind them that you support them through their emotional struggles. When their organizations are on their side, employees feel valued and assured that there are no negative consequences to taking care of themselves.
4. Mini Desk Plants
A small and easy to care plant, such as a succulent, a potos, or a snake plant, can bring a touch of nature to employees’ workspaces. These self-care wellness items for employees add freshness and can help lower stress levels, while also giving them a sense of fulfillment for taking care of the plant. Besides, who doesn't like a little green at the office?
5. Personalized Tea Gift Sets
You can offer customized tea sets featuring a variety of calming and invigorating teas, paired with a personalized coroporate mug. These make affordable, relaxing wellness giveaways that employees can use anytime on a remote or on site environment. Please, try to consider personal dietary preferences and allergies, too.
6. Guided Relaxation or Sleep Meditation Cards
Small cards with guided breathing exercises, sleep meditation steps, or relaxing affirmations can ease the mind before bedtime. Access to Meditopia's Mindfulness Program gives your team full access to 1000+ meditations, breathing exercises, natural sounds, and music to soothe their mind at work and home equally.
7. Cozy Socks or Warm Blanket
Warming up your feet can improve circulation and help the body prepare for sleep, so cozy socks or a small blanket make a thoughtful addition. For hotter seasons, you can consider small portable fans, customized hats, sleeveless shirts, and flipflops.
Physical Wellness Gifts
8. Virtual Fitness Membership
Physical activity is one of the most significant determinants of overall well-being. It promotes both physical and mental health, contributing to the prevention of cardiovascular diseases, reducing symptoms of depression and anxiety, and improving cognitive skills. And yet, according to The World Health Organization, around 1.4 billion adults are not sufficiently active.
Offering a virtual fitness membership is a great wellness gift idea for employees. Through online programs and assisted videos, individuals can move their bodies in a way that matches their personal needs. Another benefit is that they can exercise whenever and wherever they want to.
9. Compact Desk Exercise Equipment
If your budget is small, you can also offer small exercise items like resistance bands, mini dumbbells, or under-desk pedal exercisers encourage physical activity during breaks, supporting fitness and productivity.
10. Fitness Trackers
A fitness tracker is a classic wellness gift that encourages physical activity and helps employees monitor their health metrics. It’s a great wellness prize for employees focused on fitness goals, and for those interested in starting a less sedentary lifestyle. There are also many affordable models you can choose from.
11. Yoga Mats with Carrying Straps
Yoga mats make thoughtful wellness items for employees interested in fitness or mindfulness exercises. A carrying strap allows them to take it to the office, home, or outdoor spaces. You can also personalize the mats with your company's name or logo.
12. Healthy Snack Boxes
Offer curated snack boxes filled with nutritious treats like dried fruits, nuts, and protein bars. These healthy prizes for employees promote energy without added sugars or processed ingredients. Please, consider dietary preferences and allergies when choosing this employee wellness gift.
Mental Wellness Gifts
13. Noise-Canceling Earbuds
Noise-canceling earbuds help employees create a peaceful environment for focus or relaxation. They are ideal wellness gifts for employees who need quiet moments in busy offices, or for those who work from home and need an extra boost of focus.
14. Desk Zen Gardens
Desk zen gardens are calming and engaging, allowing employees to rake sand or arrange stones for a mindful moment at work. They’re unique, cheap wellness gifts for employees.
15. The Gift of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is the practice of purposefully bringing your attention to the present moment to witness what is there without making judgments. Mindfulness is an effective tool to manage chronic pain, reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety, treat chronic stress, improve sleep quality, and enhance attention.
Mindfulness-based programs (MBPs) are generally conducted as a group lasting for several weeks. Some examples include Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, which are the models that inspire Meditopia's programs, talks, and meditations.
MBSR was found to be an effective intervention for people experiencing chronic physical problems, and MBCT was found to be an effective intervention for people with depressive symptoms. Since these programs improve certain mental conditions, it is a good idea to conduct a needs assessment, define your target group, and then employ the right MBP.
16. Personal Coaching Services
Personal coaching services have become one significant benefit for attracting talent and sustaining the well-being of employees. A personal coach can guide and support your employees as they go through difficult times and resolve their work-related issues. After all, becoming a mentally resilient individual is easier with a helper. So, providing your employees with personal coaching services is a unique way of demonstrating your care for them.
17. Inspirational Desk Calendar
Affirmations and quotes have the power to develop a mentally resilient mindset. They enable embracing the change we want to see in ourselves. So, we can be productive and maintain our motivation to work while prioritizing self-care and staying inspired. A desk calendar crafted for your team is a great gift to keep the spirit up. You can include: Photos of your team, motivational quotes from famous or inspiring people, some inside jokes and sayings.
18. Art Therapy Kits
These kits include coloring books, colored pencils, watercolor kits, or simple art projects that encourage relaxation and mental focus. It’s a unique wellness gift idea for enhancing creativity and relaxation. You can also try mental health activities related to art and work and offer the art therapy kits at that moment.
19. Emotional Wellness Books
Curate a small collection of books on emotional well-being, mindfulness, or personal growth that employees can use for self-reflection. It's also a great excuse to strt your own book club as part of mental health games at work.
Customized Wellness Kits
20. Wellness Platform Subscriptions
Many wellness platforms like Meditopia are offering different services that help individuals build healthy habits such as meditating, staying hydrated, moving their bodies, and sleeping better.
You know your employees more than anyone. Track their current needs and provide them with the right subscriptions to improve their situation. We offer crafted packages for companies, including personalized mental health guides, challenges, webinars, and workshops.
21. Wellness Journal
Writing has a healing impact on us. Taking note of our goals, ideas, experiences, thoughts, and emotions helps us cultivate awareness of ourselves. This way, we can reflect on our lives and keep track of our well-being. Journals not only help us process our thoughts, but they also keep us inspired and motivated. There are various wellness journals such as dream journals, stoic journals, artistic journals, food journals, gratitude journals, and much more. You can also partner with Meditopia to craft a unique journal for your team customized for their specific inspirational and professional needs.
22. Remote Working Kit
Though it has many benefits, employees working remotly can feel isolated while working from home or in a cafe. A remote working kit is one of the favorite health and wellness gifts because it reminds your employees that you are eager to improve their working conditions. It also conveys that they are a part of an organization that values their well-being.
A remote working kit can include any items that will enhance your employees' working experience and sense of belonging. A notebook, a branded water bottle, a t-shirt with your logo, a couple of comfy socks, a collage with team photos, nutritious snacks, and so on.
23. On-the-Go Wellness Kit
Ideal for employees who travel, this kit includes hand sanitizers, mini moisturizer, a small travel pillow, and healthy snack bars. It’s a practical, portable wellness giveaway for work-life balance on the go.
24. Seasonal Self-Care Kit
Tailor this wellness kit for employees to match the season. For example, include cozy socks, hot chocolate mix, and hand cream in winter, or sunscreen, a reusable water bottle, and a small plant in summer. Seasonal kits show thoughtfulness and personalization.
25. Cold and Flu Season Wellness Kit
Include vitamin C packets, herbal teas, hand sanitizer, warm socks, and tissues to help employees stay healthy during colder months. Please, consider your employee allergies before choosing this idea.
26. Personalized Soy Candles
Calming scents like vanilla or chamomile with personalized labels for a thoughtful, relaxing touch. You could place stickers in front of the vessels with mindfuld messages or inner office jokes, too! Just please keep in mind that soy candles are recommended instead of other materials for safety reasons.
27. Outdoor Adventure Kit
Ideal for nature-loving employees, this kit can feature a stainless steel water bottle, sunscreen, a mini first-aid kit, and a small compass for their outdoor adventures
Key Takeaways
- Employees feel more valued and engaged when offered wellness gifts, as they perceive these as genuine appreciation from the company, leading to improved morale.
- Affordable wellness prizes for employees can have significant returns, with studies showing up to a $4 return for every $1 invested in employee wellness.
- Wellness gifts that reflect company values, such as work-life balance or health-consciousness, help reinforce a positive work culture and attract talent aligned with those values.
FAQs: Wellness Gifts and Giveaways for Employees
Why should employers offer wellness gifts to their staff?
Wellness prizes for employees show appreciation, promote well-being, and help reduce burnout, contributing to a more engaged and productive workforce.
How can wellness gifts improve employee morale?
Wellness giveaways, like relaxation kits or healthy snacks, demonstrate care for employees' well-being, which boosts morale by making employees feel valued and supported.
What types of wellness gifts are most popular for remote workers?
Popular wellness gifts for remote employees include home office wellness kits, noise-canceling earbuds, and mindfulness app subscriptions, all promoting productivity and relaxation. Consider asking before hand to see if you could pamper your team a little extra with specific gifts they already had in mind.
Can wellness gifts be personalized for individual employees?
Yes, wellness gifts can be customized based on individual needs, such as offering personalized water bottles, tailored self-care kits, or specific items for stress recovery.
What are some unique wellness gift ideas for corporate events?
Unique wellness giveaways for corporate events include mini desk plants, portable aromatherapy diffusers, guided meditation cards, and compact fitness tools, providing healthy prizes for employees that can be enjoyed both in and out of the office.
