The holidays are quickly approaching. That means Christmas carols and calls with your quirky uncle Stu. It means delicious meals and complete decoration of the house. It means reviving holiday traditions that have been around for generations and making new traditions with new people and places. If you’re lucky, you might even end up with some presents under the tree or in your mantelpiece stocking.
COVID-19 has changed everything, including the way we’re able to celebrate the holidays. Worldwide lockdowns and restrictions limit the number of people allowed in the same house, close down our favorite restaurants and pubs, and even force some employees to work from home. The gift of giving continues to flourish, however, and your closest friends and family members will be expecting a little something for being an integral part of your life for the past year.
So what should you get for your closest work from home employee?
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Buy these great gifts for the person in your life who works from home
Working from home brings along a myriad of distractions. Dogs bark at mail carriers. Neighbors mow their lawns. Spouses chat on the phone and forget you’re on an important video call in the next room over.
Sure, work from home employees can eat what they want, when they want; they can work in their pajamas if they so choose; they can even take a nap on the couch in the middle of the day. But when it’s time to get work done, the work from home employee needs to differentiate work from home in a space that is optimized for creativity and productivity.
These work from home employees are human beings, not copy-spewing, cabinet-filing, phone-answering robots. They also deserve fun and soothing presents like the rest of us.
Noise-canceling headphones
Noise is one of the biggest distractions when it comes to working from home. Mitigate this problem for your favorite work from home employee by gifting them a pair of noise-canceling headphones. They’ll be able to block out all the random noises going on around them and drift away into a playlist of their choice.
Jamming out to specific playlists has been proven to soothe and comfort while doubling as a productivity booster.
Technology is advancing every day, and there are noise-canceling buds, on-ear headphones, and over the ear headphones. Go the extra mile and score some over-the-ear headphones. Your friend or family member will thank you. They’ll be able to channel their inner hippie with some chill folk music, headbang with some heavy metal, or mellow out with some reggae as the word fuzzes around them.
Noise-canceling headphones are fabulous to cancel out everyday life distractions while you try to get work done. After a while, the playlists you listen to while doing specific tasks are linked in your brain, boosting your mood and jacking productivity through the roof. They are also great for working out, walking around the block, or doing chores around the house.
Adjustable height standing desk
Whether you’re in the office or your new fancy home office, sitting in the same spot all day tightens and strains your back muscles, promotes stagnation and laziness, and limits productivity while on the job. Sure, the comfortable chair with lumbar support and spinny wheels might seem ergonomically correct, but unless you get up off your booty, you’re doing your body a disservice.
That’s why a height-adjustable standing desk is a perfect gift for anyone in your life that works from home. It adjusts its height, meaning it can go all the way down low to act as a sitting desk and can lift back up to create a standing working space.
Benefits of standing desks go beyond standing
While simply getting off your butt and standing helps promote health and wellness, you get other benefits while working at a standing office space.
A recent study surveyed more than 140 people in a single office over the course of a year. These 140 workers transferred to a standing desk working arrangement from a traditional desk-and-chair office.
Key takeaway: More than 52 percent of workers said they felt more focused on their work when the study was completed, and 43 percent reported a sizable uptick in performance.
Neon working sign
This gift is perfect for the busy mom or dad, especially if their job includes many video meetings. Zoom has become synonymous with working from home. Video conferencing is an easy solution to communicate with clients, colleagues, or bosses in 1-on-1 or group settings.
Unfortunately, not everyone in the household is on the same page when it comes to meeting times.
With a neon sign that can be lit up during these meeting times and switched off during non-essential work hours, everyone in the household can know precisely when mommy or daddy is working and when they’re not.
Your favorite work from home employee will be able to avoid the awkwardness of babies, dogs, or singing spouses entering their home office during a meeting with the CEO. You might just help them get a promotion.
Comfortable slippers
Let’s face it, the morning commute for work from home employees is more comfortable and much quicker than an hour-long commute to and from the office every day. That doesn’t mean that the work from home employee in your life shouldn’t be able to commute in style.
This economically-friendly gift gives comfort, especially during the chilly winter season, and will save the family a boatload of money on heated floors. Not to mention a fashionable way to maneuver through the house or flat.
Make sure you look for the fuzziest slippers on the market. The more fuzz, the more comfortable they can glide from the bedroom down to the office, and to the kitchen and back for an early breakfast or midnight snack.
If that wasn’t enough, indoor slippers can make your house cleaner, can limit the chances of communicable diseases, and can prolong the lifetime of your socks. Bonus!
A green friend
Humans have a deep and innate need to be around nature. Lock yourself in a windowless attic or basement with nothing but solitude and technology for a few days and watch the mental, physical, and psychological effects it takes on the body and mind.
Biophilia is defined as “a love of life and the living world and the affinity of human beings for other life forms,” and proves that humans not only need but thrive when around nature.
When gifting a plant to your work from home employee, maybe go out and get a unique plant such as a cactus, mini palm tree, or spider plant. These plants require minimal care and give the home office a more lively atmosphere while saying, “I care about you.”
Plants freshen a room, clean the air, and increase mood and health in humans.
Your favorite work from home employee will be able to feel less stressed while working, will get a boost in productivity, and become more creative for their next big pitch or project.
French press coffee maker
If your favorite work from home employee is a coffee snob and, like many employees, loves a good cup of coffee in the morning to jumpstart his or her day, you could consider gifting them a coffee maker that matches their enthusiasm for a morning brew.
Enter the French press coffee maker.
As legend has it, this type of brewing style was created by a happy accident in the 1850s, when a Frenchman forgot to add the beans to the original brew but added them at the end anyway and pressed the beans with a piece of metal.
Whether you believe the legend or not, a French press coffee machine will delight any coffee drinker.
PS5
Everybody likes to have some fun, and with the newest generation of PlayStation by Sony, your favorite work from home employee will be able to take some much-needed breaks from the grind. That’s if you can find one.
Notoriously hard to track down, the PS5 has been one of the best-selling video game console systems in history. Sony literally cannot produce enough of them for worldwide demand, and consoles sold out in less than two minutes on European launch day – November 19.
The game system offers watching options such as Netflix, Amazon Prime Movie, Disney+, Hulu, and much more for a small break during work shifts, as well as a new generation of gaming. Made specifically for high-definition, the new PS5’s graphics are unlike anything the gaming community has seen before. The new Dualshock controller reacts to everything that happens within the game for an interactive experience.
There is something for everyone on the PS5, including Harry Potter and FIFA video games, an interactive way to talk to fellow PlayStation friends, thousands of movies, and even an internet browser.
Just plug in and play.
Conclusion
There are plenty of great shopping ideas for the work from home employee on your holiday shopping list. Everything from productivity boosters such as a height-adjustable standing desk and noise-canceling headphones to some comfort items such as comfortable slippers or a new PS5 would all make excellent gifts this holiday season.
Author – Alex Thomas
Alex Thomas also needs his bio to be updates with this Alex is Co-Founder and Managing Director of Breakline – a reputable digital marketing agency. His work has been featured in Business.com, Hackernoon, ReadWrite, Relevance, B2C and more.
