What is a cash-strapped startup to do when the holidays roll around? It’s traditional to give the employees something in December (although, the employees should not get something for the boss, so don’t expect it). So, what to buy?
You can, of course, foll
ow this helpful list collected from actual humans who have enjoyed gifts from their bosses. (Tl;dr: Food and cash top the list.) But, if you want to make your employees love you, and strongly consider spending the rest of their lives working for you, here’s the key to holiday present success: Allow them to ship packages to the office.
Yep. It’s that simple.
Now, this isn’t a practical suggestion if you’re at a huge site with 10,000 employees. Your mail room people would quit or you’d have to hire a bunch of temps to deal with the holiday boxes, but for a startup with 20 people, it’s perfect. Not convinced? Think about these things.
To keep reading, click here: This Holiday Perk Could Last Year-Round
This would be totally awesome.
Wouldn’t it? And it’s so easy!
I’ve been having things shipped to my workplace for years, as have a few others here. Occasionally, one of the secretaries tries to act snippy about it — mail duties are rotated among a pool — but everyone else appears fine with it. Of course, it’s not a constant influx of packages, but only an occasional one. Most of the packages are products actually produced and bought from our own company, so it’s a win-win situation all the way around.
As the only admin for a technical manufacturer, I sign for any packages. We get deliveries from all of the main package services and USPS every day. I only sign once for each service, no matter how many packages we get. Therefore, the time it takes to receive personal packages is minimal. If I feel like moving around, I take the package to the employee. If I don’t, I buzz the employee. If I’m even lazier than that, the employees know where the packages sit after delivery. It’s rare that someone doesn’t know a package is coming and isn’t already checking the area to see if it has arrived. We’re small (10 employees) but it would take a lot of employees to increase the workload to the point that it would inconvenience me in any meaningful way.
I meant to say “additional time” to receive personal packages. We already get several packages a day, every day.
Fortunately my company allowed me to ship things to my office, i used to buy products online, as online shop is getting hot trend in my country. I can also see my friend buy a smartphone and got it delivered to the office without any problem.
This would be a wonderful perk. Especially because some apartment buildings are now refusing to accept packages for their tenants. Apparently, people are shopping online so much that the volume of packages is overwhelming the facilities some buildings have for accepting and holding packages.
Clearly, the systems we have in place for receiving packages need to be revamped. But in the meantime, allowing people to get packages at work is a great idea.
If only!!! We regularly get warning emails about NOT using the organization’s mail service for personal mail.
To be fair, we do have tens of thousands of people at this campus so it would be hellacious to have to deal with people’s personal stuff too.
Great idea where it can work, though.
We have this privilege. It helps that we are SO nerdy that often you cannot tell whether an item is for work or home. We’ll even order from Amazon for work if that is the quickest & most cost effective way to get an item.