Festival season creates a very joyful environment in the office. People share their plans with each other and one of the biggest festivals in India, Diwali is celebrated with great pomp and show in the country. Every company and employer wants to grab this opportunity to win the hearts of their employees by making them feel special.
Here is a guide for any new startup entrepreneur to celebrate Diwali in their office:
How should an office celebrate Diwali?
Although entrepreneurs don't like to waste their time and money on such celebrations, they should understand that a festival like Diwali is one of the biggest marketing opportunities for their company. Besides, the employees often look up to some motivation at the end of the day, and Diwali undoubtedly comes as one of the occasions that bring in new rays of light and hope and along with it, cool Diwali personalized corporate gifts and gift hampers for employees.
Though most of the Indian companies and a majority of the Indian employees, regardless of the companies they work in, often observe a holiday in Diwali, celebrating Diwali at the office is simply delighting, to say the least. Such celebrations and get-togethers during Diwali can make the office culture more engaging, and further help in strengthening the bonds between the employees, their managers, and up along the hierarchy.
Some of the ways you can celebrate Diwali in office are:
- Diwali Gift Hampers for Employees: You can try to customise gifts according to your employees and introduce wonderful personalised corporate gifts, which can ensure that you focus on team building.
- Diwali Gifts for Clients: Clients are the important part of your business. Hence, sending customised Corporate Diwali gift items with a handwritten note from the founder can make quite an impression on the clients. Emotion is a crucial element of marketing in India. So, you need to make an emotional bond with clients by celebrating Diwali with them.
- Traditional attires: Being a traditional Hindu festival that is deeply rooted to the customs and traditions of the Hindus and of India, Diwali echoes of traditionalism. Therefore, requesting all of the office employees to drape in simple to gorgeous traditional attires is an awesome way to celebrate the day. Furthermore, this can also be followed with an award ceremony for the best dressed person or the best dressed couple.
- Discounts: No, it's not always about celebrating with your colleagues. It's also about celebrating with your clients and customers. Provide some discounts, gifts, or other benefits to your product and services. It's high time to market your brand.
- Office Decoration: Diwali is a festival of lights, sweets, and new things. You can get some new things for the office, renovate the interiors and also decorate the building to get attraction from people.
- Talent Shows: An ideal office or an entrepreneur always aims to discover and nurture the talents of the employees. Though on any other day, it can simply rejoice at nurturing the skills of the employees that are essential for the business requirements, on festive days, they might look at cultivating the other artistic, creative, and social skills of their employees. Talents shows would help the employees showcase their hidden talents for the entertainment of their colleagues, who, on the other hand, would also end up knowing their peers, seniors, and juniors from another facet altogether. In the end, these shows would certainly prove to be interesting and quite rewarding.
- Distribution of sweets: Sweets and desserts, it seems, are compulsory when it comes to the celebration of any occasion in India and Diwali is not an exception. Sweets and desserts form a major part of Diwali, and the distribution of sweets on this day can be traced back to the ancient days of the celebration of the festival. Offering colorful packets of sweets neatly wrapped and ribboned for the employees is bound to make them feel special, along with proving to be memorable corporate gifts.
- Exciting free meals: Diwali is a festive occasion that calls for some mouth-watering treats, and nothing can be more exciting for the employees than getting free meals from the office. Therefore, celebrating Diwali with some drooling delights simply cannot be replaced!
- Appetizing Potlucks: Potlucks are some crazy get-togethers no doubt and they can get crazier with more participation on special days like Diwali. A grand potluck can easily be organized at any office across the country to celebrate Diwali with a wide variety of foods from around the nation.
- Surprise Grab Bags/Mystery Grab Bags: Getting a surprise gift is always great. Surprise grab bags or mystery grab bags easily surge the thrill quotient among the employees when distributed from any office. You can also opt for distributing surprise bags that contain random gifts for your employees!
- Grooving to the beats: Lights and sounds are some of the inherent characteristics of Diwali, which helps spread the festive aura and eradicates all the negativities, going by the tradition. Therefore, when it comes to office Diwali celebrations, music and dance are simply inseparable, and therefore, can easily be the center of an office Diwali celebration. Having a guest band or a DJ perform, and grooving to the beats can be an amazing way for the employees to unwind themselves after a year worth of work and weariness!
- Engaging in good deeds: Diwali is a festival that symbolizes the victory of good over evil. Therefore, celebrating such an occasion without reciprocating the same love for the good and the hatred for the evil is just not done! This is why it must be appropriate if the office decides to let each of the employees do a good deed, and speak of it in front of his/her colleagues and managers. Starting from the distribution of clothes and foods to the underprivileged, cleaning their homes, office spaces, or discarding the negative traits, they can choose their own way of empowering the good within themselves!
- Pre-Diwali Trips: You can go on a trip with all the people in your office. Employees must already be very tired of work in this high time and cleaning work at their home. Getting a good time on a trip will cheer up their mood.
Why Corporate Gifting is Important?
The concept of gifting to employees or clients should not only be limited to the big corporate organizations, but can easily enrich small and medium scale industries and startups as a matter of fact. It is to fulfill the emotional gap between the company and its people. As most of the management people stay busy all the time, there are very few moments they get a chance to appreciate their employee's efforts. To show how grateful you are to your employees and clients, you should give them non-monetary incentives. They may spend the money in one day, but the gift can last much longer.
Ashwini
Diwali Corporate Gifts for Different Professionals
Your organization must have different kinds of people who are experts in different fields. So, generating a bunch of gift ideas for company employees of various kinds will make it more relatable for the employees and also boost the overall morale, thereby reflecting how much you care about each employee of your office.
Gifts for Coders
Most of the coders like to work while listening to music and they also keep sticking to their computers. Some of the best gifts for coders are:
- Laptop Bag
- Noise canceling Headphones
- Amazon Echo or Google Home
- Computer Glasses
- Smart Watch or Fitness Band
- Subscription to online courses
- Laptop Coolers
You can also add some complimentary gifts like laptop stickers, mousepads, laptop sleeves, flash drives, notebook, etc.
Gifts for Marketers
Marketers are mostly busy talking to clients and employees to keep clear communication between both. So, keeping in mind their busy schedule and their traveling for work, some of the best corporate Diwali gifts for employees are:
- Bluetooth Earphones
- Powerbank
- Kindle
- Smart Watch
- Travel Bag
- Travel mug
- Smart Alarm Clock
- Multi-Device Wireless Keyboard
Gifts for Artists
Some of the best Diwali gifts for artists like painters, actors, photographers, writers, video/audio editors, etc are:
- Camera Lens
- Camera Tripod & Gimbal
- Painting Kit
- Customized Headphones
- Bluetooth Speaker
- Kindle Paperwhite or App Subscription
- Video Editing software
- Portable Photo Printer
Gifts for Managers
Keep your managers motivated and productive by gifting them items:
- Funny & Personalised Desk Signs
- Business Card Case
- Amazon Echo or Google Home
- Classy Laptop Bag
- Bluetooth earphones
- Electric Pillow Massager for Car
Gifts for Receptionists
Receptionists play an important role in many offices. They keep sitting at their counter most of the time. So, keeping their work in mind, you can gift them the following things this Diwali
- Customized Bobble Head
- Bonsai Tree
- Customized Desk Pad
- Customized Diary
- Funny Sticky Notes
- Desk Organizer
Some General Diwali Gifts for your Employees
Diwali Bonus or Cash as a Gift
Diwali gifts definitely delight us but receiving a bonus in one's salary has always been regarded as one of the best incentives for the employees. Besides, considering the increasing prices overall, especially during festivals and other occasions, getting some extra cash as a bonus will not only put a smile on the face of your employees but also help them stay flexible.
Household Essentials
If the specific gifts don't quite suit you, and you want to gift your employees with some essential products that they will always need, then opting for some general household essentials would work wonders as Diwali presents. Hand blenders, dinner sets, coffee mug sets, wall clocks, electric kettles, and other things of utility prove priceless sometimes!
Eco-friendly Gifts
Going eco-friendly is the need of our generation and is undoubtedly an unputdownable drive. This is why you can consider environment-friendly items as gifts to promote eco-friendliness this Diwali. Jute bags, recyclable notebooks, stainless steel bottles, eco-friendly calendars, earthen pots, and diyas are some excellent options that you can look for in this segment!
UV Light Sanitizers
We are braving the pandemic, and sanitizers are something that we need all around the clock. This makes it a wonderful opportunity for you to gift ultraviolet light sanitizers or natural sanitizers, which will not only prove to be a unique gift but also ensure the security of your employers.
Work from Home Furniture and Essentials
Most of the companies around the globe have been working from home or embraced a hybrid culture of work since the pandemic outbreak of 2020. Therefore, even now an employee is working for a considerable time from his/her home. Though some of them have successfully arranged their furniture to suit the work from home needs many of them could still be lacking in work from home-appropriate furniture and essentials. So, you can simply opt to gift your employees with laptop tables, ergonomic chairs, etc.
Video OTT Subscription
Video OTT services like Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+Hotstar, and others have been a craze like never before. All of us can point out what we like to watch on each of these platforms, the subscription of which is never free. Therefore, getting a free subscription for one of these platforms from the office would certainly help your workers unwind a little after long hours of working!
Subscription to Online Wellness
Though we seem to like the sedentary lives we are leading ever since the coronavirus pandemic broke out, it is highly detrimental to our physical and mental health. However, we can choose to opt for a reliable online health and wellness program to shake off the woes, but again that has some fees to be paid. This is where your gift of a subscription to online wellness programs will come in handy, thereby ensuring that your employees remain physically fit and mentally active!
Other Diwali Corporate Gift Ideas to Consider
Scented Candles
Electric Lamps
Wall Clocks
Air Purifier
Natural Air Purifier
Book Set
Ashwini
Gift/Travel Voucher
Personalized and Customized Diwali Gifts
If you are still not satisfied and want to go more personal, then you can get these personalized and customized Diwali gifts for employees.
Personalized bottle shaped lamp
This could really be as cool as a gift. You can also personalize it with a quote or any tagline your friend loves.
Personalized Diary
You can gift a personalized diary to the person who loves writing. You just need to get their picture printed on the cover of the diary with a sweet note on it.
Laptop Sleeves
Do you know any computer geek? This could be a great gift for him or her. Include a diary, pen, and some other stuff with the gift.
Set Of Cookies Jar
Every Indian lady love Jars. So, you can gift them with some personalized message or just their name. Don’t forget to put some candies or dry fruits in them.
Personalized Glasses
You can make the Diwali eve a classic one. Moreover, they would really help you to overcome your fear of crackers if you know what I mean ;).
There are many other personalized gifts you can go for. But these were some of our pick for this Diwali.
Green Gifting
You can make Diwali and the rest of the year green by gifting indoor plants to your employees. It will also include branding and customization.
Diwali Gifts You Can Order in Bulk
You might have a very large organization or lack of time. In that case, it is difficult to provide a personalized gifts for each and every individual. But your company is your other family. So you have to take care of them too. Here are some Diwali gifts for office's members that you can buy in bulk and give to them.
Bobble Head
Buy some personalized bobble heads for your team. They will really be happy to have them. And when they will look at it for the first time, they will definitely smile.
Power Bank
Don’t just charge up your team, charge up their phones too. Power banks are the best diwali gift for employees as it doesn’t matter how many you have, you will still need all of them one day.
Pendrive
Just like power banks, pen drives are also collectible. They will never feel it as a burden. You can also copy some photos of office trips or any other occasion in the pen drive before giving them.
Headphones & Speakers
Who doesn’t love music? And they will be the best for relaxation after their stressful day in the office. You can decide whether to give a headphone or a speaker. There are many companies which can provide you a decent quality of music products at reasonable prices.
Smart Band
Give them a reason to be healthy. Gift them a good smart band. If you buy smart bands in bulk from a dealer, you can get a very good discount on it.
Car Perfumes
If most of your employees drive a car, then giving them a car perfume is a good idea.
Watches
A collection of watches is never too big. So, the more watches a person has, the lesser it seems. Hence, gifting good quality watches with a classy look for both ladies and gentlemen.
Feng Shui
The Chinese Feng Shui is widely appreciated and revered all around the world not only for the historical beliefs regarding them being auspicious but also for the extra charm that they add to our living rooms and bedrooms.
Promotional Items
Providing productive promotional items to your employees is not bad. It brings them even closer to the organization. Hence, you can buy promotional items like
- Pen
- Mousepads
- Diaries
- Calendars
- Keychains
- Clocks
- Bags
- Bottles
- Glass Diaries
- Laptop Skins
There are many other items you can include in your package.
Greeting Card
Don’t just greet them in the message of Happy Diwali, but let them know how valuable they are to the company. You can also include some memorable office moments. And don’t include the company’s logo on the card, if you do so, it will not touch their hearts.
Sweets & Namkeen
Diwali is not Diwali when there are no sweets and namkeen. Give some good quality namkeen and sweets with some dry fruits. If you like this post, then you can send some to me also ☺.
Please include at least 4 items to give to your employees. They work their butts off in your office, it's worth making happy at least on Diwali. Make a pack of all those gifts and give them personally if you have a small or medium team. If you have more than 100 employees working under you, then go and meet them before Diwali.
Diwali, the festival of lights, is one of the biggest festivals celebrated in India. Many schools, community groups, and business organizations get involved in celebrating the festival. We are celebrating Diwali in our office by giving some customized gifts to all the employees. This included interesting activities like Rangoli making, ethnic day, and special lunch. We have designed customized chocolates from zestchocolate. Diwali celebration in the office goes a long way in building team spirit as people from all the departments actively participate and they are able to network and get to know more about the company. The celebration provides a stronger connection between the workplace and enhances their experience as valued employees while depicting the richness of Indian culture with business culture. - Sugandha, Founder of Docttocare
Wish you a very Happy Diwali from all the team members of StartupTalky!
Parnas Ghosh
