We Asked 10 Office Organisers: What Qualities Make A Good Leaving Gift?

What makes the best presents for colleagues?

We get it - you want to make sure your colleague has a smooth and stress-free experience moving on and to feel that they were valued for the work they did, BUT you want the task to be quick and easy to set up and low maintenance to maintain given that you have at least 800 other jobs to do!
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The things you used to do deliver various rates of failure. An envelope? Hardly anyone is in the office anymore. You don't want to put the people that are in the office under pressure to feel that they must have to donate. Add to that the fact that since Covid people don’t carry cash anymore.
intoSharing your bank details for people to pay in to? Maybe to family and close friends, but across your organisation, maybe even in other countries? Not ideal.

The dream : a solution that you can use either on your phone or at your laptop/PC. A solution that allows you to see how it’s going, to see at any point how much is coming in so it really helps you to keep track. A solution that makes it easy to share with others….so easy in fact that you can do it during a briefing in which you’re not actively involved.

The solution : Collctiv. Simply create an account, share the link anywhere and watch the money come in!

Visit the website at www.collctiv.com or download the app here to check it out.

How does this help me get the perfect leaving gift?

You know what you want to achieve - they’re a really great person, you want something significant, and you want them to have something that will remind them of the times when they were with you all. This is all facilitated by how much you raise from the office whip-round.

So what is standing in your way? Where do we start?!
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1. You get no donations or so few donations that you feel obliged to make up the money yourself. Then you’d need to chase everyone who ‘pledged’ a tenner. Then you’d end up choosing to give up because life is simply too short, so in this ever-increasingly costly world, you are a further £100 short of where you’d thought you’d be.

2. The difficulty people experience when paying in AKA how easy it is for people to say ‘oh I forgot’ or ‘I had three kids hanging off me when you sent your bank details’ or ‘I’ll do it later’. They won’t.
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3. The cost of pretty much every option that doesn’t involve either an envelope or sending your most personal of information over an email. Go Fund me, Just Giving, PayPal….they all take a cut of the money people give or worse still, charge you for the privilege of spending your time, headspace and sheer effort pulling all of this together

4. The pre-determined solutions; options that exist tend to funnel you down one route or another - you can buy vouchers OR you can pay to withdraw your money OR you can spend the money on a preset selection of gifts OR you can send the cash to someone but you only have the choice of one of these options, depending on which platform it is that you are using.

5. How safe is the option you are suggesting? You are responsible for everyone’s contributions. If it goes into your personal account, how can you ensure you catch all the donations in amongst everyday direct debits, bills and spends? What if you are being scammed if you use a tool to help you?

6. What actually gift should you get? You know your colleague pretty well in a work context, and you’ve even chatted about your weekends and holidays over a coffee, but you surely can’t be expected to know their innermost desires?! You’ll either get radio silence or a bucket load of suggestions via email if you ask others, but you are still stuck with the executive decision and so either way, you are damned if you do and damned if you don’t!

The answers to these things that stop you from finding the perfect leaving gift for a colleague?

Collctiv! But more specifically to address the concerns above:

1. People raise more from using Collctiv - a) because it’s so easy to pay in via card, Apple Pay or Google Pay and b) because when you give digitally, you tend to round up rather than giving the loose change that happens to be in your suit pocket. £3.57 become £5, £5.18 becomes £8 and so on. Plus, you have the money up front, negating the need to take the responsibility on yourself and then go cap in hand in the hope of everyone paying up. They won’t.

2. It’s so easy to pay in that it removes any excuses people have. No app download or account creation is needed. People simply tap to pay.
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3. Collctiv has no mandatory fees. You can choose to contribute to Collctiv when you pay in or when you withdraw but this is YOUR CHOICE. We know you might feel you can’t make that decision with other people’s money and that’s totally fine with us. No pushing you in to a corner here!
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4. Likewise what you choose to do with the money you have raised with Collctiv is YOUR CHOICE. Withdraw it to your bank, buy vouchers, send the money to someone else (this might be the gift recipient or someone who is buying a physical gift), or enlist the expert help of needi to find you the perfect present for no cost to you.

Why not check out our blog on getting them a voucher here or getting a gift through needi here.

5. Collctiv’s third party payment processor is fully FCA regulated and we use bank-level security to ensure your money is safe. Your ID is used only to verify your identity and account and is not stored and Collctiv has no access to any funds within the platform. For more information on this see our terms and conditions here and our privacy policy here

6. Collctiv allows you to put a message to all potential payees - this can be used to ask for ideas and suggestions OR for the payee to leave a message for the gift recipient, a perfect solution to your decision-making woes.

10 Office Organisers Tell Us: What Makes Good Farewell Gifts?

If you need any further help in deciding what to get, then here are our the suggestions we've collected from people buying good luck or leaving gifts for colleagues:

Use The Element Of Surprise

Give yourself a break and know that often, the mere act of getting something for the recipient is enough to show them that they are valued, appreciated and cared for.

They will be nervous about what people think about them leaving, whether they will be glad to see the back of them and will have countless anxieties about how they will be received in their new job. A gift that comes from a group of their colleagues is incredibly powerful to allay these concerns, even if the gift itself hasn’t been hand-crafted by a magical unicorn atop Mount Everest.

There’s also the added bonus of being able to administer the gift as something non-physical.
Surprise party anyone?

Make It An Inspirational Gift

The person leaving has already taken one big step - deciding to leave their job to go and do something new. Why not capitalise on this bravery with a gift that allows them to try something they’ve always wanted to do or to leave their darling ratbags with the in-laws whilst they pamper themselves at a spa? Cook with a professional chef. Skydive. We do experience vouchers that cover all of thee and more….

Make It A Personalised Gift

Often, the best gifts are the ones that are unique - that only that one person in the world has! A photobook, an engraved pen, a leather-clad diary with the person’s initials. All show that you care (and are practical to boot!)

There’s always the challenge of being too busy to make this level of personalisation happen, or the logistics of getting it in time. Might I suggest using needi - they have tried and tested partners that can deliver exactly what you want when you want it!  

Use Humour

Humour is a brilliant way to combat the sadness of that accompanies someone leaving a company and often is a great physical representation of banter that has been indulged in over the years the person has been with the business. Of course, it’s always the solution, for example if you’ve never seen the person smile….

Make It A Group Gift

Let’s be honest, as much as you might love chocolate and wine, 10 individual gifts of Tesco’s finest - which indeed adds up to a tidy sum - are never going to achieve the spectacle that you can get by pooling all of the resources that went in to buying them. Unlock the power of the group and get them something they really want!

Make It Practical

If you are lucky enough to get the inside track on what the person really needs, then you are on to a winner when buying the ideal leaving gift. Maybe their best friend works in the company too, or whilst at the water cooler, the person told you that they were about to buy their first camper van so they are due for a spending spree at their local camping shop. Get them something you know they need and they’ll think of you and the team every time they are shivering in the Scottish Highlands….

Organisers bring people together‍

Since 2019 - Collctiv has helped over 320,000 people from 88 countries come together by making it simple for Organisers to collect money from groups. Whether it's group gifts, retirement presents or sports teams - download our free app today and start bringing people together!