What Gifts Do Remote Employees Actually Want? (Hint: Not Another Branded Water Bottle)
Have you noticed how the songs of the 80s and 90s are EVERYWHERE on commercials now? You love it — but it's still surprising to hear the songs you identified with as a teen selling products. Remember Da Da Da by Trio on a VW ad? Why is this happening? Cuz Gen Xers are the adults running the show now. They are us!
So here you are, running your own biz, & it's time to send corporate gifts to your remote team. What would Darrin Stephens get as an office Christmas gift on Bewitched? Probably a fruitcake, & that SUCKS. You don't want the Darrin gift. You want the Bewitched gift — the one that appears magically on your employee's doorstep (via UPS, FedEx or USPS — I outsource my witchcraft) to surprise & delight your non-corporate workforce.
I know that gift exists, because I've made it. A while back, a company ordered a dozen custom doormats from me & sent them all over the US — one to each remote employee's front door. They sent me their copy & a basic idea, I drew up a design, they approved it, & a week later twelve people who'd never shared an office all had the same inside joke lying on their porches. I'm pretty sure it was a company in-joke. I didn't fully get it. That's fine — it wasn't for me. That's kind of the whole point of a good gift, isn't it?
The problem with most remote employee gifts
A corporate branded gift doesn't say "we appreciate you." It says "we remembered we're SUPPOSED to appreciate you and we had this lying around." Remote employees know that’s bullshit, because they already feel disconnected from the team. A generic gift just confirms it: you're a job title, not a person.
And let's be honest about where the usual stuff goes to die. The branded water bottle ends up at the thrift store. The gift card gets lost in a drawer — or worse, in an inbox. Nobody's guest has ever pointed at a logo mug & said "oh my god, where did you GET that?"
A doormat is different: it gets put out at the front door IMMEDIATELY. Not eventually — the day it arrives. And I'd bet real money most of your employees' current doormats are worn out & desperately in need of replacing anyway, so you're not adding clutter, you're solving a problem they've been ignoring for two years.
[ IMAGE: A worn-out, sad old doormat next to a fresh new one — before & after on a real porch, real dirt. Alt text: "Worn out old doormat next to a new coir doormat, the upgrade every remote employee needs." ]
Skip the logo. Seriously.
Here's the part that makes gift committees nervous, & I'll fight any one of you on this: leave your logo OFF the mat. Branded swag is a billboard, not a present — that's not generosity, that's marketing, & everybody can feel it.
But a fun doormat with no logo becomes a STORY. The doormat is the one guaranteed moment of attention in the whole house — every guest looks down while they wait for the door to open, it's human nature. Then they ask, "Where did you get that hilarious doormat?" And your employee says, "My company sent it — the whole team got one."
Now they're bragging about their office. Voluntarily. At their own front door, to people you could never reach with an ad. That remote worker just felt connected to a team they usually only see in little Zoom rectangles. THAT's the actual gift.
How to pick the right mat (without an HR incident)
It depends on your biz, & this is where knowing your people pays off. An IT company? They'd love the Binary Code Welcome Mat — the nerdy joke tells everyone exactly what kind of geeky house it is. That's what a great gift does: it says I see you, not I bulk-ordered you.
Not sure how spicy your team runs? Our funny Welcome mats are the safe place to start — clever without tripping anyone's HR alarm. The catalog runs from perfectly SFW to extremely NSFW, & funny travels across every department; profanity, bless it, does not. Save the rude stuff for the coworker you KNOW would get it.
[ IMAGE: The Coder & Normal Person mat (or another nerdy favorite) at a real front door. Alt text: "Coder and a normal person live here funny nerd doormat, a work from home gift for IT teams." ]
How a bulk doormat order actually works
If you're the HR person or office manager thinking "okay, but HOW" — here's the honest rundown, no mystery, no sales funnel.
You've got two roads. Pick from our catalog & expect a few days of turnaround before your mats ship. Or design a fully custom doormat: send me your copy & your basic idea — even a rough one, like that glasses company did — I create the design in full color, you approve it before anything gets manufactured, & THEN we print. Custom designing typically adds an extra week to work together on the final product, & it's worth every day of it. Inside jokes are the best gift material on earth, because they only work for your people. Nobody can buy that off a shelf.
Shipping works either way your team does: individual home addresses (remote, right?) or one full box to the office to hand out yourself. The dozen-custom-mats company went the individual route — twelve porches, twelve states of surprise.
The gift that gets wiped on for years
A gift card gets spent (or lost) & forgotten by Friday. A quality doormat sits at the front door for YEARS, getting read by every guest, delivery driver, & trick-or-treater who ever stands on that porch. If you want help matching mats to people's actual styles, I wrote a whole guide on how to choose a doormat for your entryway — same logic applies whether you're buying for yourself or twelve strangers in twelve states.
And every mat comes from a small, independent, queer-woman-owned shop that's been making people laugh at their own front doors since 2009 — not some big-box swag mill. Like the Cool Glasses doormat that started this whole story: one company, one good idea, twelve front doors that got a little funnier.
Your remote team already has enough mugs.
Be well & enjoy wiping your feet.
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