Employee Gift Ideas

Several years ago, a Florida woman owned three dogs—a black Lab mix pound dog, a tri-color Australian shepherd and an Aussie mix. She raised them all the same, but they were all different. For instance, she could throw a ball 100 times, and 100 times the pure Aussie would bring it back. When she threw it to the Aussie mix, that pooch would catch it and walk away. The Lab mix let the ball bounce off her face. Just like kids—raised the same but all different.

You can treat your employees all the same, but they’re all different, too. A woman who owned a small P.R. firm rewarded her employees at Christmastime by driving them to a different city to one of her favorite, exclusive restaurants, the kind where the meals were so expensive the prices weren’t listed on the menu. If she had really thought about her employees, she would have known that, while they appreciated the thought, one would have much preferred a Christmas bonus in the amount her meal had cost. Another would have loved that amount of money to buy several less expensive and more enjoyable meals. The third worker wished she had received even a modest gift, something that lasted awhile, unlike a meal that was here and gone.

No one knows better than we do that you can’t please everyone. With that caveat, we have come up with a corporate retreat that puts other such adventures to shame. We can offer our standard and popular luxury tours of San Francisco, the California Coast and/or Yosemite National Park or customize a retreat specifically for your group. If the point of the venture is camaraderie, there’s no place better to accomplish that than Yosemite, where the backtrails traveled by native Americans, naturalist John Muir and others have been left in their pristine condition. Imagine hiking those trails, enjoying a hearty meal over a crackling campfire and, as nightfall comes, viewing the Milky Way in all its glory.

We can adjust our wellness retreats depending on skill level as well. Nobody needs to be a star athlete to absorb the beauty, majesty and serenity that is Yosemite. People connect in the wilderness better than in the city, in our experience, and the encounter enriches the soul. It beats a meal at an exclusive restaurant by a long shot.