Most of the gifts listed below help with the niggles of that ‘remote lifestyle‘ – lack of work-life balance, distractions, need to buy your own tools and equipment, spending *a lot* of time in front of the computer – and hence – will make any remote employee happy and more productive!
So if you know a VA or another remote worker you’d like make happy this Christmas – here are some Christmas Gift ideas you should consider:
#1 Laptop ($ 300 – 600) or a tablet ($ 50 – 200)
If on of your nearest and dearest is a VA, you may consider splashing out on a bigger gift – such a piece of tech they could use in their daily work.
If your beloved Virtual Assistant already has a laptop she’s happy with, you may consider helping her with a tablet. As one of the group members said:
I use my laptop, and phone and they always seem to run out of battery at the same time so a tablet as a back up would be awesome. Also a fit bit so I can be told to get off my but as I work so much I end up sitting down for ages and ages
#2 Yearly subscription to essential tools
A remote worker or Virtual Assistant needs to use plenty of tools in her work – and the monthly subscriptions quickly add up to a huge bill. If you wanna offload your VA in her monthly expenses, why not give her an annual subscription to an essential VA tool?
We covered the best tools for Virtual Assistants in our earlier post here, and here are the ones mentioned most often by the VAs we asked:
Social Media Schedulers – Postfity ($ 99 – $ 799 / year), Later ($192 – $ 492/ year)
Postfity is an affordable and easy to use social media scheduler for all the main social media platforms – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and even Vkontakte.
It offers a lot more pending posts and accounts than more popular alternatives – hence offering better value for money (see our comparison between Postfity and other social media scheduling tools!)
If your remote-worker friend focuses on Instagram only though – it might be a good idea to gift them Later – an app that is an official Instagram partner, and allows scheduling posts to Instagram directly from desktop – without having to use a workaround on your phone. 
Graphic Design – Canva Pro ($ 155)
Well, we obviously like Canva quite a lot 😉 for anyone that has to deal with simple graphic design in their remote work (Social Media Marketers, VAs) – Canva is life-saving. In the PRO version, your beloved will get access to a much wider database of stock photos, graphics and the magic resize tool (which helps to resize any image/ graphic without losing resolution – a big time saver for social media!)
Client Management Tools – Dubsado ($ 350)
Dubsado is an all-in-one client management tool that includes everything you need to manage your relationship with clients as a remote entrepreneur: from invoicing to time-scheduling and CRM.
A perfect gift for any beginner entrepreneur, freelancer or a Virtual Assistant!
Music Streaming – Spotify ($120) / YouTube Premium ($144)
Music can help a freelancer focus, work faster and mute the background noise from a coworking space/busy cafe. If you know your freelancer friend/ remote employee loves music, why not give them a gift of ad-free music streaming via services like Spotify or YouTube Premium?
#4 Gadgets – Battery Pack/ Powerbank ($15-30), Laptop Bag ($10 – 40), Bluethooth Air Buds ($20-50)
Let’s face it: a remote worker or a VA may choose to work from home to be able to combine his/ her career with her family life better. Or to travel. In either case, there will be times when they need to work from places without sockets, or do something quickly on the go.
A powerful power-bank that will allow them to charge their laptop or phone on the fly will be often live-saving for a remote worker. You can buy them two – a smaller and lighter one (5000-10,000 mAh) they can carry around all the time in their handbag, mostly for charging the phone, and a larger one for charging the laptop during longer trips (20,000 + mAh).
A handy laptop bag or (noise-cancelling ;)) headphones/ earbuds will also make a remote worker’s day. There are so many situations in which one needs peace and quiet, which can’t be found at home or in a busy coffee shop. Luckily, with good quality noise-cancelling Bluetooth earbuds one can ‘create silence’ at a snap of the finger – quite literally!
#5 Co-working Space Membership ($ 300 – 600)
Working from home can make it not only difficult to focus, but also be bad for your mental health in the longer run. So if one of your nearest and dearest decides to launch her own business or starts a remote job, why not give them a considerate gift of a coworking space subscription?
Apart from WeWork, there are hundreds of different coworking space providers. Check out what coworking spaces are in your area. If you are employing remote employees yourself in your business – take coworking space subscriptions into consideration as Christmas presents for remote workers.
#6 Time-tracking Device – Timeular ($65 – 300)
Time-management and time-tracking are super-important for remote employees. Whether you need to justify your billing / how you’ve been spending your work-time to your client/boss, you need to have a system for tracking where your time goes. Unfortunately, time tracking is often tedious—and often involves a lot of manual data entry. Timeular makes it really easy though — tracking time with it is like rolling the dice.
Timeular is a smart eight-sided physical device for time-tracking online!
You draw different activities your time goes to on the device walls, and then flip it on the side corresponding to the task you are currently working on. Timeular does the maths for you and tracks the time you spend on each activity/task automatically, and then transfers it to your account in your mobile/web app:
Time trackers like Timeular can make a real difference to your remote worker’s life – so consider giving them as Christmas presents for remote workers. And maybe they will have more time for you too 😉
#7 Coffee Subscription ($10 – 20 pcm), Starbucks Gift Card (from $10), Meal replacement bars ($10-40)/ shakes ($15-45)
Ok, let’s face it – if you’re a freelancer and you’re working long hours (especially in the evening, when balancing freelancing with parenthood) – good coffee is a must. A coffee subscription will make every remote employee happy. Alternatively – if you know your remote employee works mostly from coffee shops, especially Starbucks – it may be a good idea to give them a Starbucks Gift Card.
Also – healthy snacks are vital when one leads a mainly sedentary lifestyle. Chocolate bars can be easily replaced with a healthier alternative – a sugar-free protein bar or a meal replacement shake. So if you care about your remote employees’ health – consider giving them as Christmas presents for remote workers.
#8 Standing desk ($120 – 300)/ Ball chair ($ 69 – 105)
Are you hiring remote workers such as programmers or designers in your business? You don’t know what workdesks they are using and what problems with their backs they are bound to have soon. And the health problems of your remote employees are your problems. So – consider giving either proper standing desks or ball chairs as Christmas presents for remote workers. They may cost a few hundred dollars, but will save remote workers from bad back pain, and thus improve their efficiency at work.
#9 Gym membership, or Zumba /
Well, let’s face it – getting enough exercise is often not the strongest suit of a remote worker. And yet – it has been scientifically proven that exercise makes one more productive at work!
How can you help your remote employees or freelancer friends stay in shape when they work from home?
Give them a gift of gym membership, or – if you know they are more advanturous – Zumba or Yoga classes. Especially the latter helps to relax and let of stream, by providing exercise not only for the body, but also for the mind!
#10 Business/ Motivation Books (from $10)
A friend of yours is starting a business? Or taking the leap and starting to work as a freelancer? Or maybe one of your remote employees needs more inspiration?
Here’s a list of my go-to motivation/inspiration books:
- Turning Pro: Tap Your Inner Power and Create Your Life’s Work – Steven Pressfield
- 10X Rule – Grant Cardone
- The Millionaire Fastlane: Crack the Code to Wealth and Live Rich for a Lifetime! – MJ DeMarco
- Rich Dad Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
- The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck – Mark Mason
- Built to Sell: Creating a Business That Can Thrive Without You – John Warillov
- 4 Hours Work Week – Tim Ferris
- Re-Work – Jason Fried
For the book reviews and more inspiration – check out my blog post here.
#11 Amazon Gift Card (from $ 25)
Last but not least – if you have no idea what your remote employee actually wants…let them decide themselves and give them an Amazon gift card 😉
Hope this guide helps! Do you have any other ideas for Christmas presents for remote workers? Let us know in the comments!
