What Do Employees Want From a Holiday Gift This Year? Two October Surveys Point to Choice, Personal Fit and Early December
Two employee-gifting surveys published this month — Custom Ink's on October 20 and Snappy's on October 9 — land on the same message for anyone planning year-end rewards: a one-size gift underperforms, employees would rather pick from a shortlist, and most want the gift in December. Both come from companies that sell gifts, so the headline numbers need reading with care.
Where the two surveys agree
Custom Ink, which sells custom apparel and branded merchandise, surveyed 509 corporate gift buyers and 502 employees for its 2026 Employee Gifting Survey. Snappy, a corporate gifting platform, surveyed 1,500 full-time U.S. employees in September 2026 for its 2026 Employee Holiday Gifting Report. They asked different questions, but where they overlap the answers line up.
| Question | Custom Ink (Oct 20) | Snappy (Oct 9) |
|---|---|---|
| Personal fit matters | 94% value a gift more when it feels personal | 43% name “it feels personal to me” as the top trait of a good gift |
| Same gift for everyone | Only 23% prefer everyone getting the same item; 58% want to choose from a curated shortlist | 44% say giving everyone the same gift feels out of touch |
| Timing | 81% hope to receive gifts between early December and the holiday break | 72% prefer December (35% early, 37% mid-to-late) |
| Getting it wrong | Nearly 60% of corporate gifts end up unused, regifted or discarded; 51% rank office supplies least favorite | 49% have received a workplace gift that showed the giver didn't know them; 82% of those say it made the recognition feel less meaningful |
| No gift at all | 23% name getting nothing as the worst employer gift they've had | 68% have heard of another employer's gift and wished their company did something similar |
Two derived figures put those rows in perspective. In Custom Ink's data, employees who want a curated shortlist outnumber those who want a uniform item by about 2.5 to 1 (58% ÷ 23%). In Snappy's, the 49% who received an ill-fitting gift multiplied by the 82% of them who said it hurt the recognition means roughly 40% of all respondents (0.49 × 0.82 = 0.40) have had an employer gift backfire. Both calculations are ours.
Where they differ: does a gift keep people?
The retention numbers look contradictory, and they are not measuring the same thing. Custom Ink reports that 97% of workers say a gift they love makes them more likely to stay — a hypothetical about an ideal gift. Snappy asked people who had actually received a thoughtful holiday gift what changed, and 32% said they felt more likely to stay with their employer, alongside 71% who said it increased their job satisfaction and 54% who felt more positive about their workplace. The second number describes real experience and is the one we would put in a budget memo; the first is closer to a statement of preference.
Questions reward teams are asking
How much weight should these numbers carry?
Some, not a lot. Both companies sell gifts, neither release names a panel provider, and Custom Ink's does not give fieldwork dates. The results are directionally consistent with each other, which is more useful than either headline figure alone. Treat them as a prompt to ask your own employees, which is exactly what Custom Ink says most buyers skip.
Do the surveys say anything about gift cards?
Not directly. Neither release breaks out gift cards as a category. A gift card or a pick-from-a-catalog reward is one way to give the “curated shortlist” employees asked for, but the surveys do not test it against physical gifts, so we will not claim they do.
Does choice change the tax treatment?
Yes, if the choice is delivered as a gift card. IRS Publication 15-B (2026) lists holiday gifts “other than cash, with a low fair market value” as de minimis benefits, but names gift cards and gift certificates as cash equivalents, which are never excludable as de minimis. A low-value physical item can qualify; a gift card of any amount is wages that run through payroll.
What it means for this year's holiday reward plan
- Ask before you buy. A three-question pulse survey (category, format, preferred week) closes the gap between the 93% of buyers who feel confident and the 35% who actually use employee input.
- Offer a shortlist, not a single item. Choice was the clearest preference in both data sets. For distributed or international teams, a catalog of local brands avoids shipping one physical item across borders.
- Budget for the tax difference. Choice delivered through gift cards is taxable at any amount; low-value physical items may not be. Finance should model the gross-up before the format is fixed.
- Deliver in the first half of December. That window satisfies both surveys' respondents and leaves room for payroll processing before year-end.
- Do not skip it. “Nothing” was the single most common worst-gift answer in Custom Ink's survey.
For year-end benchmarks beyond these two surveys, see our corporate gifting statistics for 2026 and holiday and year-end bonus statistics; the payroll rules are set out in are gift cards taxable to employees? Teams that want to give employees a choice of brands can do it through Rewordin's reward catalog, and companies with staff in several countries can see how local brands are handled on the global rewards page.
Sources
- Custom Ink, “97% of Employees Say Great Holiday Gifts Boost Retention, But Most Companies Are Still Guessing” (press release, GlobeNewswire, October 20, 2026) — sample sizes, buyer confidence and insight figures, preferences, timing, worst-gift answer. The GlobeNewswire page blocked automated access; we read the identical release as syndicated by FinancialContent. globenewswire.com / financialcontent.com
- Snappy, “New Research From Snappy Finds Thoughtful Holiday Gifting Can Fuel Employee Motivation Into 2027” (press release, PR Newswire, October 9, 2026) — 1,500 full-time U.S. employees surveyed in September 2026; satisfaction, retention, personal-fit and timing figures. prnewswire.com
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 15-B (2026), Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits, “De Minimis (Minimal) Benefits” — holiday gifts other than cash; gift cards as cash equivalents. irs.gov
This article summarizes two vendor surveys and an IRS publication. It is not tax advice; confirm the treatment of any gift with your payroll provider or tax adviser.
About the author
Maciej has worked in the digital gift card and rewards industry for over 5 years. For this story he read the Custom Ink and Snappy survey releases and the de minimis section of IRS Publication 15-B on October 22, 2026, lined up the questions the two surveys have in common, and calculated the derived gap, ratio and share.