Small businesses are special not only because of the extra care that goes into the production of the goods or services that you buy but also, mainly because of their people. People means you have ideally hired the right team of employees that make your business seem all the more human, help build relationships with buyers who keep coming back time after time. This means your business thrives because of the people on your team and what better time than Christmas to show your thanks. Here are few things you could do to remind your staff that their service to your business is more that appreciated:

1. Throw An Office Party!

This is the most obvious thing to do! You need to be throwing a seasonal, year-end party that takes your staff’s leave into account. So you should host this party before they all take off to spend time with their families until the New Year. Some of them would be continuing to work for you as well, so throwing in some festivity amidst the busy rush of work would always help with motivation to keep them going.

2. Personal Gifts

If you are a small business, then you don’t have a large volume of staff members. This means you should be able to give them small but personal tokens of your appreciation. Take the time to buy each of them something that is meaningful to them – small businesses mean you should have taken the time to get to know your staff enough to do this!

3. Flexible Seasonal Leave

The holidays for a small business means that more of your staff will be working when the rest of the world is taking time off to trim the tree and spend time with their loved ones. Ideally you should be working out a flexible leave policy that allows your team to be able to take time off in shifts while others are working and vice versa.

4. Bonus beyond Bonus

There is more you can do for them besides buying them a personal gift or giving them an end of year performance bonus. Why not help out with the many additional expenses they need to incur during the season and give them shopping vouchers or even pay for their turkey or other main element of their Christmas dinner? When you are small and you value your team there is no limit to how far you should and could go for them.