Cash vs. Symbolic Holiday Gifts

Tis the Season to answer…..

Cash vs. Symbolic Holiday Gifts

You trust your Promotional Products adviser to find just the right holiday gift, and it’s one of the most enjoyable requests I get to work on all year. Then comes the bombshell, when you tell me “ we had a meeting, and this year we have decided to give out cash (or gift cards)”. 

The two points you will find in most studies are: (a) if you ask employees which they would rather receive, they will almost always say cash (b) studies show that non-monetary gifts do much more for the giver, and actually have a much higher appreciation value to the recipient.

Think of it this way- Productivity is rewarded with cash and that can be a powerful motivator to the recipient. However, a “gift of appreciation” is much better received as it is seen as coming from the heart, and has a lasting effect, where cash does not.

Below is an excerpt from a recent study by The Symbolist which can be used to make the point.  

"What determines reciprocity in employment relations?  We conducted a controlled field experiment and tested the extent to which cash and non-monetary gifts affect workers' productivity.  Our main finding is that the nature of the gift, not its monetary value, determines the prevalence of reciprocal reactions.  A gift in-kind results in a significant and substantial increase in workers' productivity.  An equivalent cash gift, on the other hand, is largely ineffective even though an additional experiment showed that workers would strongly favor the gift's cash equivalent.

Read that again… cash was less effective even though workers preferred it.   

Their premise:

"We hypothesize that, unlike a wage increase, non-monetary gifts or gifts in-kind provide a more salient signal of kind intentions and therefore represent a superior mechanism for the establishment of successful gift-exchange relations. In comparison with money, gifts in-kind are often considered to be more thoughtful and to more credibly reflect regard."

Meaning – non-cash communicates emotions and social contracts – not transactional ones.  And that is double-plus good.

If that is not enough to get you to steer away from cash this year, just check out this classic (and very funny) Seinfeld video and let Kramer teach you!  Enjoy!

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