Holiday party with open bar? No thanks, we’d like a bonus instead

Bosses playing Santa, take heed: there are gifts that nearly every employee wants but also a few that make a lump of coal seem like manna from the heavens.

Like, for example, a holiday party with an open bar. Only 5% of workers list such a boozy fete among their top choices for employer-gifted seasonal perks, according to a new report from career site Glassdoor.

Maybe they just don’t want to make a fool of themselves in front of colleagues and then have to take a sick day afterward to recover -- a very real situation faced by two-thirds of Americans, according to recent research.

Other unpopular gifts, according to employees: gym memberships, company stock, even the option to work from home for a full year, Glassdoor found in its survey of 2,050 workers.

What underlings really want from their bosses is money. Six in 10 ranked a salary raise as one of the best gifts possible, while nearly three quarters said they’d want a cash bonus.

Some 76% of employees say they’re eligible for a bonus this year. Of those, 58% told Glassdoor that they expect to get the boost, while the rest are unsure or pessimistic about their chances.

And, in gender gap news, while 60% of young men think they’ll land the extra money, just 44% of their young female counterparts believe the same.

But, this also being the season for resolutions, 40% of workers ages 18 to 34 said their goal is to get a raise in 2013. That’s double the percentage of their colleagues in the 45- to 54-year-old range.

Overall, nearly a quarter of employees said they’ve resolved to look for a new job. And 13% said they’re aiming to use all their vacation days. Nine percent vowed to socialize more with co-workers.

And don’t forget the Grinches. Two percent of workers are hell-bent next year on getting their supervisor fired.

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