Farewell gift ideas for a colleague leaving, in Singapore

Someone on the team hands in their notice, and within an hour there is a group chat with fourteen unread messages and no decision. This guide is the decision.

It is written for the usual Singapore office: a small team, three weeks of notice, a per-head budget somebody has to collect, and one person doing all the organising. Probably you.

First, answer three questions

Are they leaving the country, or just the company? Someone moving to Melbourne cannot take a heavy award in checked luggage. Someone moving down the road can. This rules out more options than anything else.

Is it a desk clear-out or a proper send-off? A quiet last day means something small enough to carry home on the MRT with a box of their things. A farewell dinner can take something with presence.

How long were they here? Under two years, a good group card and a solid mid-range gift. Five years and up, something that marks the time. Fifteen years, and anything off a shelf will feel thin whatever it cost.

Ideas by budget

Small gifts: one person or a small team whip-round

At this level you are buying something good rather than custom: a decent notebook, a coffee setup, a plant that survives neglect, a bookshop voucher. The card matters more than the gift here, so make sure everybody writes something specific rather than “all the best”.

One thing that punches above its price: an engraved item they already use, like a pen, a tumbler or a luggage tag. Laser engraving on a bought object is quick and cheap, and it turns a generic gift into theirs. Our gift catalogue is grouped by budget.

Mid-range: a gift from the whole team

The comfortable middle for a team of six to ten. Hampers work if they are staying in Singapore; a good bag or desk object if they are not.

This is also where a small engraved award makes sense for someone who led something. Not a corporate trophy with the company logo dominating it, which reads as the company thanking them rather than the team. Their name and the thing they were known for.

Bigger keepsakes: a long-serving colleague or a manager

Now you can have something made for them, and this is where farewell gifts stop being forgettable. The two that work best:

A custom figurine of them. The person in the outfit they wore to the office, holding whatever they were known for: the mechanical keyboard, the oat latte, the one hoodie. People keep these on desks for years, and nobody can buy one anywhere else. Our Mini Me figurines are priced in the studio, and a group can add themselves into the scene if the budget stretches.

An engraved award or plaque. More formal, better for a boss or someone retiring. Our retirement trophy for a Lion City Sailors goalkeeper is the register to aim for: about them, not the org chart. For long service, our long service award guide covers the usual milestones and how the tax rules treat a non-cash award.

For larger teams, a batch of matching pieces works too. Everyone got the same piece in our run of anniversary figurines for Shure, which avoids one person getting something and nobody else.

The bit nobody plans for: lead time

This is where most custom farewell gifts fall apart. Everyone agrees to “do something nice”, and then it is the Tuesday before their last Friday and nothing has been ordered.

Start on announcement day. Five weeks out, even a hand-painted piece is comfortable. Five days out, buy something good and engrave it rather than forcing a custom piece into the gap.

Collecting the money without it getting weird

Getting eleven people to PayNow you is where these things die.

• Name the number first. “A set amount each, closing Friday” gets a response. “How much should we all chip in?” gets forty messages and no money.
• One collector, one deadline. Two people collecting means somebody pays twice and somebody pays nobody.
• Let people opt out quietly. Not everyone can spare it or was close to the person. A direct message rather than a public list saves someone an awkward moment.
• Say what the leftover does. Usually the card, a plant or the farewell lunch. Deciding up front stops the leftover-money conversation.

What to avoid

Anything perishable if they are flying out. It gets left in an office fridge.

Inside jokes that need explaining to their family. People who were not there will see it. If it only lands with the eight of you, it becomes a thing they feel bad about throwing away.

Company-branded merchandise. They are leaving. A branded jacket is a souvenir of the employer, not the people.

Leaving the card until the morning of. It is the part they keep longest and the part most often rushed.

If you want something made

We make custom figurines and engraved awards in-house at our studio on Bendemeer Road. For a figurine you design it yourself in the browser: upload a few photos, approve the artwork, check a rotatable 3D preview, and order without waiting for a quote.

Prices are on the [Mini Me page](/custom-figurines-singapore), and the [full walkthrough of how a photo becomes a figurine](/blog/custom-figurine-from-photo-singapore) covers the photos to send.

For awards, plaques or a batch for a bigger team, tell us the headcount and the date and we will say honestly whether it fits before you collect anybody’s money.