Building an employee gifting strategy with PlumTree
Put yourself in the client seat and learn how Flow Traders revamped their employee gifting strategy to be even more personal and tailored to their company’s values and personality.
Flow Traders is a leading global technology-enabled liquidity provider in financial products. With offices worldwide, their creative, passionate team collaborates to support investors with their proprietary technology platform.
Flow Traders had traditionally recognized work anniversaries by inviting employees to choose a branded item from their store, but they wanted to evolve the way they approached gifting. They hoped to make their employee gifts more personal and less about the company.
"As a company grows, it's important to build strong programs that can develop alongside the company needs," explains Jillian Grossberg, HR Generalist at Flow Traders. "We wanted to ensure that we had a gifting strategy built by Flow Traders, for Flow Traders."
Mapping out an employee gifting strategy unique to Flow Traders
“One of our number one priorities has always been employee experience and creating a good culture. Part of that is making sure that there are always ways for people to spend time with one another, exciting new things to do and experience, and remembering not only the big things in life but also the little,” shares Grossberg. “A work anniversary, a birthday, getting married, having a baby—all are reasons to celebrate and it’s always nice to receive a gift acknowledging those milestones and feeling appreciated.”
After identifying the personal and professional milestones and calendar events Flow Traders wanted to celebrate, we established an annual gifting plan. By basing all plans on annual estimates, we can order items and pack boxes in advance to avoid delays or supply chain issues.
For professional milestones, Flow Traders chose to recognize work anniversaries and promotions. On the personal end of the spectrum, we created gifts for graduations, weddings and engagements, and new parenthood. We also made a general-purpose box for Flow Traders to use for various occasions, including special thank you or illness recovery.
Curating personal employee-centric gift boxes
Once Flow Traders selected the occasions and price points, it was time to start building boxes.
“One of the biggest reasons we wanted to partner with PlumTree is that they worked with us to build something really special and personal. We didn’t want gift boxes that were standard and on every store shelf. We wanted to create boxes that fit our company style, what we know our employees like, and make sure they fit the occasions perfectly,” shares Grossberg. “When we had ideas but weren’t quite sure where to start, PlumTree was able to offer suggestions and was excited to help us make our vision a reality. Working together was seamless and we created a program that will allow us to updated gifts, add new products, and continue to be creative in how we work together.”
Through a collaborative process, we curated items for each gift box specific to the designated milestones. We carefully chose products to celebrate the recipient while conveying Flow Traders' values and culture.
Anniversary Boxes
Work anniversaries are perfect opportunities to show employees that their contributions are valued. We worked with FlowTraders to create four anniversary gift boxes.
Coffee Thrill features a cold brew coffee maker and two sophisticated coffee glasses.
Half Full contains a cocktail infusion jar, shaker and strainer lid, and a pair of versatile cocktail glasses.
Cheese it! is packed with a beautifully crafted fair trade cheese board and knife set.
Pampering is filled with plant-based soaps, lotion, and a hand-poured candle from Apotheke.
Promotion Box
A new role is always a cause for celebration, and what better way than with a celebratory toast?
Graduation Box
Celebrating the graduation of newly recruited soon-to-be-employees is a great way to build a positive relationship with new hires even before their first day on the job. We created a unique gift box for Flow Traders to mark that special occasion.
Wedding or Engagement Box
Engagements or weddings are very personal milestones rarely celebrated at a corporate level. This gift box shows how much Flow Traders values and honors these special moments in their employees' lives.
Welcome Baby Box
Becoming a parent is a life-changing event that impacts an employee's work-life balance. Whenever they gift this Welcome Baby Box, Flow Traders demonstrates that they support their employee's new role as a working parent.
Finalizing the branding and logistics
It's not only what's inside the box that matters—presentation is crucial.
Branding and personalizing the gift box are essential to communicating the company's values and culture. Depending on budgets and qualities, PlumTree clients have multiple options for their packaging.
Flow Traders opted for a magnetic black box with branded sticker, black gift wrap, and a branded card with a different thoughtful message and signer for each gift box.
Finally, to facilitate the shipping of the boxes, we created a dedicated portal on the PlumTree website for Flow Traders’ Human Resources team to easily choose which box to send to which employee at any time throughout the year.
Flow Traders really understood the value of establishing a comprehensive annual strategy. It is a pleasure to help them create and share such thoughtful and personal gifts with their employees. If your company needs a partner to create an employee gifting strategy that supports your overall engagement efforts, we can help.