businesses to offer guilty pleasure incentives like dinner to a nice restaurant or a trip to the spa than to offer straight up cash. The money is gratefully received but quickly forgotten. The fancy dinner becomes an experience and even though it usually costs less for the business, it moves the needle on business culture better than a cash gift. The crazy thing is that most people will say that they would prefer the money when given the choice, but it doesn't have as much of an impact on positive business culture and engagement.

That could be wrong, but it kind of intuitively makes sense to me. People like to "win" or "receive as a gift" something that they wouldn't normally buy for themselves.