MOO’s Chief People Officer on what makes quality branded merch essential

As an HR Professional, I am always thinking about ways to increase engagement and connection between our employees and the company they work for. You want your employees to have pride in where they work, and quality branded merch (or swag, as your employees might call it) is a tool that can help create that connection. With over 20 years of experience, I have seen swag used in many ways, and in a post-pandemic world, I personally think of it very differently now where remote and hybrid working is the norm.

How quality branded merchandise improves physical connections

Historically, so much investment was placed in physical real estate as a tangible way for employees to feel the culture or a physical representation of what your company is about. As our employees at MOO sit at their desks at home, I want them to also have that physical connection, whether they’re hybrid or fully remote. 

Branded merchandise is no longer just a freebie or gift an employer can give to their employee as a thank you—it’s a representation of the brand, and it should leave an impression. That physical item now stands for the quality of the brand, and providing something that’s premium quality and sustainable will leave a different impression, one that should make employees feel valued. 

US-based companies are catching up to the rest of the world as they become more brand conscious and more considerate when it comes to the other brands they partner with. Employees are becoming more educated on how products are made, and they want to work with companies that share their values. As a result, not only is the product itself an important representation of your brand, but who made it matters, too. Branded merchandise is an opportunity to tell a story over time. 

What we do at MOO

At MOO, we use our branded merchandise in several ways while an employee works for us. Having everything from one company makes for a more cohesive story. In the same way, you can leverage both the story behind the products you are choosing and the partnership with MOO as part of your internal engagement strategy. 

MOO has a great example of how we creatively used our own products to provide a remarkable impression on our new hires. We’re about to launch New Starter Boxes with the basics of business cards, summaries of local benefits and perks for each office location, brand guidelines they can see represented in the products, and copies of our internal values. We’ll also include some fun, because our brand is fun. Items like Stickers to decorate your laptop and a guide to our Slack channels. We emphasize that at MOO, you can be you and a MOOster at the same time, which is exactly what we want our New Starter Boxes to represent.  

We also use our Stickers and Postcards to mark key employee milestones, such as anniversary dates, and internal events. In partnership with our JEDI (Justice Equity and Inclusion) team we have Stickers and Postcards for Pride events, Stickers for pronouns for your laptop, Stickers and colouring sheets for Take Your Kid to Work Day, as well as thank you notes and Stickers to shout out your colleagues. 

We see our paper products and quality branded merch as a way to showcase our internal brand, educate our employees on important internal information, provide a physical connection to MOO, and (arguably the most important) have some fun.

We know that a great onboarding experience can make a huge difference in our MOOsters lives, and help us keep them happy in their jobs for longer. That’s why we’re spending so much time developing our New Starter Box (stay tuned for that), and why we have what you need to help you do the same at your company. Reach out to our helpful team today to learn more.