
Like many gift-giving situations, retirement can be very difficult to choose an appropriate token to give. Certain presentations have become very familiar for this purpose, but many of them do little more than satisfy someone’s feeling of obligation to provide a gift.
Probably the most common gift is a gold watch, and many employees have received these at the end of their service. They were a good choice for many years, as they symbolized the time given by the worker as well as providing a valuable and beautiful accessory for them to wear. However, retirees have changed, and that means it’s time for their gifts to change as well. With the popularity of fitness trackers and the near-saturation of cell phones into society, most people have at least one timepiece on their person at all times, making a watch redundant. Watches given as gifts today are likely to stay in the box and collect dust.
Another popular item is the commemorative pen. These provide a nice place for an inscription, and they have some practical value as well. But they too have fallen out of favor, partly because they eventually run out of ink and prove to be worthless. In addition, someone who is retiring is likely to write less than they have in years, so a pen is not all that useful to them.
More recently, gift cards have gathered momentum as a simple, quick gift. That’s exactly what makes them less appealing for a retirement gift. When someone has provided 30 or 40 years of work, the least we can do is spend a little time deciding what to give them. Gift cards also lack any real connection for the recipient; the same card could be presented to almost anybody for almost any occasion.
Plaques are a common memento as well, but their value drops to almost nothing as soon as they have been presented. Plaques generally don’t provide any information that wasn’t just given by the presenter. They rarely match the recipient’s home and can be very difficult for them to place.