Gifts for colleagues

The one rule: nothing that touches the body

No perfume, no bath products, no clothing, no jewellery, nothing scented for skin. It sounds strict, and it removes about half of the ideas people default to.

The reason is not squeamishness. A gift that touches the body implies you have formed an opinion about their body, and in a workplace that lands somewhere between intimate and evaluative, even when everyone involved means well. Hand cream from a team collection is fine. The same hand cream from one person to another is not the same object.

Stay in the neutral zone: things for their desk, things they drink, things they read, things they take home in a bag.

What misfires in an office

Not: alcohol without knowing whether they drink. A bottle handed to someone who does not is a small, public misfire.

Not: anything referencing their appearance, age, diet or family plans. It reads as a comment even when it is a compliment.

Not: gag gifts about how much they work. 'World's most stressed' mugs land differently when the person genuinely is.

Not: spending noticeably more than everyone else. It creates an obligation for a colleague who now has to reciprocate on a budget you cannot see.

Buy for the occasion, not the person

You are rarely buying for a personality here. You are buying for a moment, and each moment has its own shape.

A leaving gift should be portable and slightly sentimental, and a card everyone actually wrote in matters more than the object attached to it. A birthday gift should be small, consumable and opened in under a minute, because nobody wants a ceremony at 11am. A thank-you after a brutal project should be indulgent rather than useful: good chocolate, a bottle, something they would feel guilty buying mid-week. A new-baby gift from the team should be for the parent, not only the child; they will receive forty things for the baby and nothing for themselves.

What a collection actually buys

Team collections tend to arrive at a number nobody planned. Twelve people at £5 is £60, which is enough for one genuinely good object, and far better spent that way than on three mediocre ones plus a balloon.

Set the per-head amount low and say it out loud. £3 to £5 for a birthday, £10 for someone leaving after years. Anyone can quietly opt out of £5. Nobody can quietly opt out of £20, and the person collecting ends up subsidising it themselves.

One person should buy, one person should hold the card, and the card should circulate before the gift is bought, not after, when half the team has gone to lunch.

Opened at a desk with eleven people watching

They unwrap it at their desk, and a meeting starts in four minutes. That is the actual delivery environment, and it rules out anything bulky, anything that needs explaining, and anything that would embarrass them if it were held up.

It also rules out inside jokes that only three people understand. The other nine will smile politely and the recipient will spend the afternoon explaining it. Aim for something they can say thank you for in one sentence, put in a drawer, and take home on the train.