Jess Lindgren is a longtime C-Suite assistant, and host of the Ask an Assistant podcast.
In this Ask an Assistant spotlight episode, Jess talks about gifting in the office.
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ABOUT JESS
Jess Lindgren has worked in the C-Suite of organizations great and small for 20+ years. She focuses on supporting her current CEO in his many endeavors, improving the relationships between EAs and their Execs, and has very low tolerance for any meeting that should have been an email. Jess hosts the wildly popular* business podcast, Ask An Assistant.
*in her Grandma’s sewing room
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
Jeremy Burrows 0:00
Hey, friends, it’s Jeremy Burrows, host of The Leader Assistant Podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. I’m actually excited to put the spotlight on my friend Jess Lindgren’s podcast called Ask an assistant. Jess takes questions from you all and then answers them on the Ask an assistant show. So be sure to go to askanassistant.com to check out more episodes and submit your questions for Jess. I hope you enjoy this spotlight episode of the Ask an assistant show, and we’ll talk to you soon.
Podcast Intro 0:34
The Leader Assistant Podcast exists to encourage and challenge assistants to become confident game changing leader assistants.
Jess Lindgren 0:56
Hello and welcome to another episode of Ask an Assistant the podcast for executive assistants and the people that love us, I’m your host. Jess Lindgren, let’s get to work today. We are talking about gifting in the office. It is late November leading into early December. It is the gift giving season. As the year winds down, I definitely talked a bit about gifting on the bosses day, episode number 37 linked in the show notes. But I’ve been getting questions about it near daily from people just, you know, what do you do? Do you do a gift? What are your thoughts? Definitely seeing this as a trend in the subreddit, ask an assistance. There’s couple of Facebook pages, lots of people talking about gifting in the office, and whether or not it’s something that you do. Executive, assistant to executive answers are all over the board. There’s no right or wrong answer. But generally speaking, gifts flow down, not up. So leadership to assistant management, figure to employee. However, it is that your office is structured. It also definitely depends on the relationship that you have with the people and or person that you support. But generally speaking, the etiquette is that gifting flows from leadership down, and if you feel so moved for any number of reasons, a token gift for the perfect person or team that you support. Is totally appropriate. I gave the bosses Day episode a listen, and I really liked what I had to say on that episode, so instead of honestly re recording it, I took the episode everything that follows in a brief moment. Here is the audio from Episode 37 with all mentions of bosses day clipped out to make it general gift giving. Friendly advice. So if you listen to 37 and you liked it and you retained it, you’re all good. If you want to give it a listen again with an open mind and an ear toward general gift giving. Without further ado, here are my thoughts on gift giving in the office. I hope you enjoy.
Jess Lindgren 3:16
If you do a like Google, like just a teeny, tiny little search, you can find numerous guides on etiquette that advise gifts generally are meant to flow down like management figure to employee, whether that means CEO to executive assistant, whether that means director to managers, whether that means president to Vice President, whether that means manager to employees, however it is that your company might be structured like you can if you really want to get out a copy of the org chart, take a look also, especially in 2024 job titles, what do they even mean? So, however, it is that your organization is structured whoever it is that you report to, generally speaking, it should not be expected that you gift them, and it should not honestly be expected that they gift you, just if there is a company culture of gifting, generally speaking. And if you’ve been listening for a while, you know that I do not love to use the word should. But generally speaking, gifts should flow down the chain of command. There are definitely reasons that up to down rather than down to up. So up down, gifting is a much better flow. There, generally speaking, is a pretty sharp difference in financial compensation. Like I know, everyone’s situation is different depending on your tenure with any given company, depending on the size of your organization. Like, I work in a company of two, my compensation is very different than the person who is the executive assistant at General Mills. Like we just work in different organizations, but generally speaking, it. Is safe to say that the executive assistant, whether they are at General Mills or a two person company based out of San Diego, California, the executive makes more. And to that end, it is, again, generally speaking, going to be different in every organization. Generally speaking, it is an order of magnitude more that the executive makes over their executive assistant, or whichever relationship it is that we are examining in any given workplace. So just the expectation that someone who makes an order of magnitude less should be giving a gift to someone who makes an order of magnitude more is, frankly, ludicrous. It can also be seen as wanting to, like, butter up the person in power, whether it’s for a promotion, a raise, any other implied reason. Meaning can certainly be gleaned by both manager receiving the gift and other employees in your organization who might see you giving the gift. There are certainly reasons that you might opt to give a gift. Anyhow. Maybe you have an existing personal relationship outside of the office, but as such, you might perhaps opt to give the gift privately outside of work as well, like honoring that separation of work and home. You know, professional and personal lives, give that gift somewhere out of the office, maybe you and your supervisor, whatever the dynamic is, maybe you have an inside joke or a shared interest. In that instance, a small gift is totally appropriate, like, maybe a special skein of yarn for a fellow knitter, like, you went to New Zealand and you got hand spun alpaca yarn on your Hobbit Lord of the Rings extravaganza. Like, that’s really special and really personal and very cool. You know, it’s a shared interest, maybe, like my grandma, I mean, she’s not my boss, but she always collected little teaspoons. So like when we would travel, we would pick her up a little teaspoon. Or maybe you have a person at work who collects magnets from all over the world, or, like a sticker or a pin from a shared show that you quote all the time at each other. Like, there are people on Etsy making absolutely incredible fan art that, for whatever reason, the shows haven’t just made themselves. Like, very cool, very funny, very niche humor for lots of different shows, even big things like Star Wars, like, I got a really cool, oh my god, what is his name? Oh no, I’m totally blanking on his name, but he’s the cute little gremlin looking guy who’s like mad baby in the Mandalorian Babu Frick. Oh my god, I love him. And Star Wars did not make any Babu Frick merchandise. So, like, if I really loved Babu Frick and I was somebody’s supervisor and they gave me a Babu Frick pin or sticker, like, I would lose my mind, you know. So just when you have a little shared interest, a little inside joke, something small is totally appropriate. Like, there’s no hard dollar amount for things like this, but it’s always a good idea to keep it on the less expensive side. A number of people also asked about feeling pressured into participating in a group gift for a management figure. What I said before absolutely still stands. Generally speaking, management figures earn so much more money than the people that they supervise. And I have heard through people reaching out for this episode the wildest stories, like people dropping hints about the jewelry or the tech gadget. You know, I iPhone, I Apple, I Apple, whatever. Apple just released the new headphones, and I’d really love a pair that is wild, like, if you want to contribute, and it’s not a burden, and you love the person that you so that you support. By all means, go ahead, contribute, make Karen and finances day by giving 20 bucks or whatever. But I also saw stories of people like, oh, you know, Karen and finance is asking me for $60 I’m not even exchanging gifts with my significant other this year because finances are tight. If you don’t want to contribute and or it is a financial hardship to do so, please remember that you never owe anyone an explanation about your financial situation or your personal feelings on the matter, like if somebody, if Karen in finance, is trying to pressure you into a group gift contribution, no matter how large or how small it could be, $1 $5 $20 $100 like everybody’s definition of that, of it being small or large, is very different, and I remember days, thankfully I am so well compensated at my current role. Uh, but like, I remember days where counting every penny, counting every dollar, every $5 was a make or break situation. And like it also deciding to participate in something like this definitely, you have to consider how much you like, respect or otherwise regard the person in question. Like, if you don’t really like this person or respect this person, you might not care if you can afford $100 toward the CEOs new bracelet from David yerman. Like, you might just be like, no, they can buy their own bracelet. Like, just, please remember in situations like this and so many other situations in life that no is a full sentence. End of story. When it comes to gifting, though you may also wish to consider checking in with your executive andor HR on the subject HR might have a policy in place with guidelines about what amount is appropriate, definitely more prevalent in government roles. I have a friend who works. I’ve had a few friends over the years who have worked in various levels of government, from federal all the way down to county or city. And you know, generally speaking, there are limits, like $25 in a lot of cases, and anything over that needs to be declared, needs to be documented, needs to be evaluated to make sure that it doesn’t come off as some kind of bribe.
You might also have a Raymond Holt as your executive from Brooklyn nine, nine, who has a strict no gift giving preference. So just really touch base with people, make sure you’re on the up and up and all of that being said, what is appropriate or any other gift giving occasion when it’s employee gifting up? Personally, I’m a big advocate for a card, like if you really want to go buy a greeting card, I’ve worked with executives before who absolutely hit to our greeting cards, and I’ve worked with people before who a post it note with a little smiley face on it is enough, but a nice card, a nice note with a very sincere and heartfelt message on it, really goes a long way. I love any excuse to fire up my typewriter. I have a very beautiful IBM Selectric too. I have like, almost every font. There’s only like two that I don’t have, and they haunt me every day. But, like, I just love typing up a note to somebody on my typewriter all day, every day. I’m also a huge advocate for making whatever your specialty is, like, do you cross stitch? I just picked up cross stitching again for the winter. When we moved from Minnesota to California several years ago, I gave all my cross stitch stuff to a friend. Haven’t really thought about it much since, but I was looking for a winter hobby, and in addition to bread baking. I am picking cross stitch back up, and I just bought the cutest set of patterns. It is called mini masterpieces. I will link it in the show notes, but basically, the seller on Etsy took a bunch of art masterpieces and made them into little cross stitch patterns, and they come out tiny and cute and would look amazing on your boss’s desk. Do you scrapbook like make them a customized holiday or whatever occasion card, like you have all of the tools to do it and make it look great. Do you bake? Make a batch of your whatever your favorite thing is, or whatever your executives favorite thing is put it in a cute container. Voila. Gift solved. Honestly, I cannot believe my luck in this regard, my specialty is homemade marshmallows, and my executives favorite dessert is s’mores. We didn’t actually find this out until we’d been working together for a few years, but now that I know a couple times a year I will send a batch of marshmallows to my executive and their family. Yeah, it just to recap the episode for this week. Gifting up is not it in the office. Write a nice note, bake a batch of your grandma’s State Fair, Blue Ribbon winning zucchini bread, give them a little cutting of your favorite plant and propagate it. I’m just learning about that’s my other winter hobby, learning about propagating plants from my sister and one of her friends, who are both big have plant people. You know, if you just if you don’t want to, or you can’t participate due to finances, lack of vibes with the boss, or any other reason under the sun, no is a full sentence and requires zero further explanation. From you and all of that said brings us to the end of this week’s episode. Please stop by askanassistant.com ask your question. I don’t have a show without you, and always remember that the only stupid question is the one that you don’t ask until next week. Take care
