Written by Kim Rohrer

Kim Rohrer is a veteran people leader, writer, speaker, and advisor with over 15 years of experience building human-centered cultures at high-growth companies. She is the founder of Patchwork Portfolio, author of the I Care Too Much newsletter, and co-host of the HR Confessions podcast. Today, Kim shapes the future of work through a variety of roles, drawing on her HR strategy and storytelling experience to build cultures worth talking about. Her work ranges from Employee Experience and Employer Brand to Communications and Community.

Connect with Kim on LinkedIn.

Every year, HR teams everywhere enter the same spiral: Which holidays do we give time off for? What do we call the December company party? And of course — how do we show appreciation in a way that will actually make people feel valued?

I’ve been there. Working as a People Leader at companies with employees all over the world, I watched well-meaning leaders struggle with the same questions year after year about whose holidays get acknowledged and how to celebrate our teams.

Spoiler alert: there is no perfect one-size-fits-all solution, no matter how many vendor demos promise you there is. And your good intentions only go so far when someone feels invisible or misunderstood.

So let’s talk about which inclusive holiday benefits actually work when you’re trying to give back to your team without leaving people out.

Not everyone celebrates the same way (and that’s the point).

We’ve all experienced that fun time at work where “the holidays” is really just corporate shorthand for “Christmas … oh, um, but also Hanukkah and I guess Kwanzaa and maybe the Winter Solstice too? Here’s our office Winter Celebrations Tree and some candy canes? Secret Santa is inclusive, right?” Awkwaaarrrrrrrd.

Many companies moved past calling it the “Christmas party” years ago, but even “holiday party” dances around the reality: people celebrate different things, at different times, in wildly different ways. 

Some of your employees are fasting during Ramadan or Yom Kippur while meeting deadlines. Others don’t observe any religious holidays, but still like to celebrate the season. Some people want shiny company-branded swag, and others like to end the year holed up in a snow-covered cabin with no technology. 

The point is, plenty of folks have traditions they want to celebrate this time of year — they just don’t want you to assume what that celebration looks like.

It’s nearly impossible to design one holiday experience that reflects the reality of your entire team’s lived experiences — and you should stop trying, like, now. There is a better way!

This is where Lifestyle Spending Accounts start to make sense as an inclusion strategy, not just a benefits offering. When you give people a stipend they can use however they want, you’re not just giving them flexibility; you’re acknowledging the diverse spectrum of needs (and that you don’t know what they all are) and demonstrating that you trust them to make their own choices.

That might mean:

• Buying ingredients for a special family meal
• Covering travel costs to visit loved ones
• Purchasing gifts that align with their traditions
• Supporting a cause they care about through donations
• Using it for something completely unrelated to any holiday at all

And bonus: Compt’s Midyear Benchmark Report found that 70% of stipend spending goes to local and independent vendors rather than big-box retailers — hell yes to keeping those dollars in your local community, where they actually matter!

The point isn’t to celebrate everything. It’s to stop pretending there’s one right way to celebrate anything.

The great swag waste problem affects us all.

Let’s be honest: most company swag is expensive garbage.

Boxes of logo’d hoodies in the wrong sizes, sitting in storage until the company rebrands. Employees who already have four water bottles and zero interest in a fifth. Gift boxes filled with artisanal candles that smell like “forest floor” or whatever, shipped in packaging that could survive a nuclear blast, destined to sit unopened in a closet, waiting for the next white elephant gift swap.

And we do this every holiday season, convincing ourselves that this year’s holiday swag will be different. It’s not.

Not everyone wants to splurge on something for themselves, either. While some employees will definitely enjoy a free massage or a special excursion on an upcoming vacation, some would rather make a donation to a cause they care about during end-of-year giving season. Others might use it to cover groceries or household essentials when finances are stretched thin. 

But maybe someone does want that hoodie with the new company logo. Great! Let them choose it from your swag store so you don’t have to trek to every GAP within commuting distance to track down those cool hoodies in everyone’s sizes that they are sold out of online, so that you can send them to the local embroidery shop in time for the holiday party. (Been there.) 

Rather than giving everyone another mug that will end up at Goodwill because they’re still using last year’s mug as a pen holder on their desk and they don’t need another damn mug … let folks use a company gift platform to buy something for a family member when money is tight. (Done that.)

That flexibility matters.

Besides, when you default to one-size-fits-all gifts, you’re not just wasting money; you’re contributing to overproduction, excess shipping, and literal trash. The environmental impact alone should make us rethink the model. If your office swag closet (or apartment, increasingly common in our remote-work environment) is full of unwanted leftovers, you know what I mean.

The gift isn’t the hoodie or the expensive whiskey. The gift is respecting that people have different values and priorities.

Stop managing holiday chaos point by point.

Even if you’ve moved past bulk swag orders, there’s still the vendor management nightmare.

You research gift platforms. Schedule demos. Negotiate pricing. Sign the contract. Send the announcement. Next year (or even sooner), you’re doing it all over again because the last vendor didn’t have enough options, or the interface was clunky, or people just didn’t use it.

And every platform has the same rotation of meal kits, candles, and succulents. It’s like they’re all pulling from the same catalog of things people are too polite to say they don’t want. 🤭

Managing point solutions for every occasion — birthdays, work anniversaries, holidays, life events — is exhausting. You’re juggling logins, budgets, approval workflows, and reporting across multiple platforms, all for “personalization” that isn’t actually personal. And time is money, right? Your time is valuable. Don’t waste it on administrative nonsense that doesn’t make an impact. 

Meanwhile, your employees are drowning in accounts they never asked for, trying to remember which platform has their points, which one expires, and whether this quarter’s wellness credit can be used for that thing they want or if they need to wait for next quarter’s stipend. Only 28% of employees surveyed by benefits broker NFP report making maximum use of perks and benefits because of “the misfit of benefits offered versus what is valued.”

Blegh.

It’s a lot of effort for a system that fundamentally misses the point: people just want choice. Compt’s case study with Quickbase blew my mind (processing benefits now takes 90 minutes instead of literal days!), and — hot off the presses — their new case study with TEN7 says it only takes 5-10 minutes a month to administer!

Wish Compt had been around when I was having “help me organize my swag closet” body doubling sessions and hosting “swag trade” happy hours to help get rid of overstock!

The real gift? Feeling seen.

Holiday planning doesn’t have to be this hard. You don’t need the perfect gift, the perfect vendor, or the perfect way to acknowledge every celebration on the calendar.

You just need to treat your employees like adults — adults who know what they value, what they celebrate, and what would actually make them feel appreciated.

That’s what inclusive holiday benefits (and inclusion in general) actually look like in practice. Not a carefully curated gift box. Not a generic “Happy Holidays” email. Just respect, flexibility, and trust. 

Imagine that.

P.S. I wouldn’t write for Compt if I didn’t love the team and believe in the product. Book a no-pressure demo today and see what the fuss is about!