Where can I find gifts for work colleagues?

Finding a gift for someone is a big responsibility; after all you know you want the recipient to feel cared for and valued. As the person responsible for making this happen, you carry the weight of expectation of everyone contributing (and even those who aren’t!). Read on and hopefully this blog will help alleviate the burden!

Where can I find the best work leaving gifts?

So you’re in your weekly team meeting and are just about to leave when suddenly, you are informed by ‘management’ that someone is leaving. Everyone looks to you when the question is asked of ‘who will sort out the collection?’ All at once you find yourself as the project manager and driving force behind the coordination of the gift that will summarise Barbara’s 25 years with the company. Is that because you are fixated with ticking things off a list and willingly volunteered, or do you feel like you have ‘mug’ tattooed across your forehead?

Everyone else leaves the meeting with simply the topic of how wonderful Barbara is and how sad they are to see her go, before carrying on with their daily lives, oblivious to the gargantuan task that has just landed at your doorstep, when let’s be honest, you were plenty busy before that!

How do I organise a collection for a work colleague leaving gift?

Now, gone are the days of the brown paper envelope. No longer can you minesweep for the loose change in people’s pockets - not least because they don’t carry cash any more but also because very rarely, since Covid, is everyone in the office together, if at all!

So you face a dilemma - do you send your bank details out to everyone across the email network? I mean, you spend time shredding your mail to ensure less obtrusive details can't be gathered, so ideally you really don’t want the details of your current account floating around the email inboxes of the majority of your organisation.

Then there’s the issue of trying to reconcile payments against all of the other activity on your account. Direct debits, food shops, refunds from online outfits you sent back last week. I mean, you can guarantee people won’t follow instructions and put the simple reference you asked for on their payments can’t you? So you’ll then need to spend yet more time studiously scouring your statement, highlighter in hand, to identify who has paid what and when.

People often forget as well the added pressure on those organising these things: everyone else’s money - that they gave in goodwill for beloved Barbara - is now sitting in your personal account! Who’s to say the company won’t receive an email from you from a beach in Mexico, sipping on a Pina Colada with the subject line ‘So long, suckers!’. Of course, you know that’s NEVER going to happen, but you can be fairly sure it’s crossing people’s minds to some extent…in some instances it’s actually against company policy, potentially breaching bribery policies, or simply on a moral level, it can make you feel compromised or exposed.

How can I easily arrange a money pool in my workplace?

So how about this - an app that makes it easy to collect money from people whilst also making it easy for people to pay in? Too good to be true? I think not.

Collctiv is a free app that allows you as the organiser to create a money pool that in turn generates you a payment link or QR code. People paying in simply click this link or scan the QR code and within 10 seconds have paid into the office whip-round…..from anywhere! They haven’t needed to download the app, create an account or activate an email. They just tap to pay and the funds are right there (anonymous to everyone but you) in your pot!

Download the Collctiv app here to start collecting money instantly!

Where can I find ideas for a leaving present gift?

We all know you can trawl the internet, scrolling through pages and pages of potential gifts being touted as ‘the best this or the most incredible that’, but really, with all you have on , your job to deliver and your own life to project manage, you have better things to do with your time.

We like to make life easier, so we’ve got four simple options for once you have collected all of the money together to solve this headache for you. Simply choose the one that suits you best or if you aren’t sure, let us help you to achieve your desired outcome!

1) Vouchers - we have curated 8 companies that cover pretty much anything your recipient would love to do or to buy. With this selection of vouchers, you are showing the person that you have put thought into the gift, but they still have choice in what they ultimately choose. If you know any teachers, ask them and I’m sure they’ll tell you that instead of a boot full of Home Bargain’s finest first aisle £5 specials, a voucher for a tailored experience, or an upmarket brand like John Lewis that they can get or do something awesome that they will remember for years to come would be so much more meaningful.  Check out our blog highlighting these options here.

2) Flowers - the quintessential way of saying ‘I love you’, ‘good luck’, ‘we’re thinking of you’ or ‘don’t forget about us’. You can now select the very finest bouquets from our friends at Bloom & Wild. Not only will the flowers amaze, but the way they are presented to the recipient will wow too! You can choose a traditional bouquet that’s pre-arranged, or they offer ‘letterbox flowers’ where the recipient arranges them on arrival - a fun and interactive activity that gives the recipient an additional feeling of wonderment! Read more about this on our Bloom & Wild spotlight blog here.  

3) Needi - we have partnered with our very good friends at Needi who are the personal shopper that you cannot be without! Simply tell them a bit about the recipient and your budget and then leave them to use their many years of expertise to source you the finest selection of gifts to guarantee the result you wanted when all of this began!

What’s best is that the founders of the company really get where you are coming from, because they’ve been in your exact position on so many occasions! From being schoolgate Mums to the person making everything happen in their previous corporate jobs, we can guarantee that they’ll get you and what you want to achieve, and will make suggestions that nail this!

Check out our blog post for more information about the marvel that is Needi here.

4) Gifting Gurus - we have our very own gifting gurus on hand in the app to help you to choose your gift. Take the weight off and let us do the hard work by helping you navigate the gifting minefield! You will be speaking to a UK-based actual human ( the only robots you’ll find here are the dance moves we bring out after a few too many proseccos at Aunt Alison’s wedding…..) who will make it their mission to ensure you get the solution you want! 

Whatever you need from beginning to end, we’ve got you covered!

Download the Collctiv app today for the best solution for work colleague gifts!

Since 2019, Collctiv has helped over one million people from 140 countries come together by making it simple for Organisers to collect money from groups. Whether it's group gifts, retirement presents or charity collections - download our free app today and start bringing people together!