I’ve spent over fifteen years moving through the world of corporate gifting across agencies, brands, procurement teams, makers, crafters and communities. If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: joy has been treated as a luxury long after it should have been seen as a strategic lever.
Joy is not a mood. It is what happens when people can feel that their work matters. And gifting, when done intentionally, is one of the few business practices that touches everyone: employees, clients, suppliers, communities, and the makers behind the scenes. But somewhere along the way in the rush for efficiency, urgency and survival, our country’s businesses have created something they never intended to: a killjoy culture. Not because leaders don’t care, but because pressure, systems and old habits have slowly crowded out the space where productivity, excitement, enthusiasm, and yes, joy, used to live.
The tragedy is that this is happening at a time when many workers feel like they’re running on fumes. According to a recent report, nearly two thirds of workers have experienced burnout. What makes it hit home even harder is that burnout is emerging earlier in the year than before, with many employees feeling end-of-year fatigue as soon as March or April.
Over and over, I’ve watched what suffocates joy. Saving pennies while grossly impacting the moment, and the whole gifting investment may as well go in the bin. The obsession with branding every single item, like a corporate tramp stamp, and low-budget, disposable gifting that is fun to unwrap but has no value beyond unboxing. Procurement rules that trump the creative process, metrics with no meaning when nobody measures the human impact, stories that never get told, even when the gift has lifted a local business, supported a crafter, or restored dignity. All driven by corporate decisions made far away from the humans affected by them.
These habits kill connection, they kill trust, and they kill one of the most underused forms of belonging-building that businesses have at their fingertips. And trust me: people feel it, especially in the gifting ecosystem.
Makers feel it when they’re rushed, underpaid, or copied. Teams feel it when they have to pull a rabbit out of a hat without a proper brief or budget. Procurement feels it when burnout silently spreads because the system has become so focused on ticking boxes and cutting costs, it’s forgotten that there are humans behind the hard work.
Luckily, I’ve also been in the position to see the opposite: the moments where joy changes everything, especially in this industry. I’ve watched project teams find a whole new rhythm because they know their creativity matters. I’ve seen communities feel the ripple of a gifting decision that supported them with dignity, not charity. I’ve seen makers light up because someone respected their craft enough not to copy it, cheapen it or rush it to the point of erasing its soul. And I’ve seen how a thoughtful, intentional gift that holds real value can shift the energy of an entire room.
So much has shifted in recent years. And in this complex, heavy, hopeful, extraordinary country, joy can’t sit on the sidelines of gifting. Not when gifting is one of the few business rituals that still has the power to reach people emotionally in workplaces that desperately need to feel human again.
My hope is that leaders finally recognise that joy isn’t the ribbon on the box. It’s the reason the moment matters at all. And right now, in South Africa, it’s one of the most powerful tools they have.
Written by Vicki Scheffel, Founder of Ge-Skenk