How Appropriate Is It for Managers to Send Flowers and Cards to Employees?

Q. How appropriate is it for a first-level [line] manager to send cards and/or flowers to employees at significant personal events, such as births of children or deaths in their families? We have such a person, and we don't have a policy forbidding it ... nor are we sure one would be appropriate. A.On first reading of your quandary I wanted to say, "Of course it's OK" for managers to send flowers. Have we become so impersonal, so "emotionally correct" or litigiously sensitive that we would try to stifle the compassionate inclinations of a human heart? But then my rational voice started to demand some equal time. So let me pose some questions and then some strategic recommendations.

Questions

1. Is this supervisor sending out cards to everyone in the company or to just those on his or her team or department?

2. Is this supervisor able to be consistent? In other words, is everyone receiving a card at a significant personal event (and if the company wasn't small, how would the person have time to do their work and keep up)? Or is the supervisor picking and choosing? Can the supervisor in any way be perceived as playing favourites?

3. Does the receiver or anyone else in the company or department now feel pressure to reciprocate such altruistic behaviour? With our diverse workforces, different cultures often have different ways of acknowledging personal events or rites of passage.

4. As a therapist, I have to at least ask about the sender's motivation: Is this the action of a kind-hearted person or the action of a lonely heart? If the motive isn't clear (and clean), eventually the receiver will sense that something is askew.

Recommendations

1. If the supervisor were simply sending acknowledgments to a relatively small number of people in her department, I'd say that's acceptable. If her giving is going beyond this immediate and intimate boundary, I have some question if not concern.

2. HR might want to query some of the recipients about their level of comfort upon receiving the supervisor's consideration. I would also have HR inform this supervisor about this follow-up procedure, perhaps explaining that HR is doing a survey to discover the preferred method by which individuals and the company (or department) as a whole might acknowledge these significant markers or events.

3. The following recommendations are based on conversations with a friend who has been a teacher at both public and private schools. In her organizations, a Sunshine Fund was established; the whole staff could contribute money for acknowledging birthdays, weddings, childbirths, etc. For unexpected deaths, an envelope was passed around. However, this method, especially with the Sunshine Fund, created some tension when it became clear that there were colleagues not contributing to the Sunshine Fund. Now some people questioned why they should give money regarding an event for a non-fund contributor.

4. My solution: Establish a Sunshine Fund with company or division funds. This does not have to be a costly amount. And then let people have the freedom to make or not make an added contribution. My friend noted, understandably, that she would contribute more for someone she knew well. Hopefully, a mixed (company and personal) funding method will allow for individuality without sparking issues of favouritism or exclusion, while simplifying and mostly unifying the contribution/consideration process. 

[SOURCE: www.workforce.com - article by Mark Gorkin, the Stress Doc, Washington, May 4, 2007]