Corporate Holiday Gifts
Around the holidays, if you're in business then you're going to have to start thinking about giving out corporate holiday gifts. This is becoming a standard business custom - from your boss to your customers to your close business associates, people who you have a business relationship will expect a gift. You'll need to think about how you're going to set up your gift list and what you're going to get - a corporate gift is a statement, and it says a lot both about who you are and about how you perceive your relationship with the recipient. There are dozens of pitfalls you need to avoid - from failing to give a gift to someone you should, to giving a gift that results in embarrassment.
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Corporate Holiday Gifts
The first thing you should make sure of is that if you're giving out gifts to people you know (as opposed to customers) don't offend anyone by giving a gift that is specific to a holiday that they don't practice. If you know someone well enough to know their religion, then don't do anything insensitive to it. A Jewish person may not appreciate a Christmas themed gift, for example. Many people just won't care and will be happy for the sentiment, but you don't want to step on anyone's toes. One way around this is to call it a corporate holiday gift instead of a Christmas gift - but even this can offend some people. The best rule is to tailor it to the person you're giving it to, or make sure that any introductions on any card are generic to the season if you can't. Watch the theme to make sure that you aren't giving something too specific to a holiday if the recipient might not celebrate it.
Make sure that corporate holiday gifts correspond to the actual closeness of your relationship in most cases. If you give a thousand dollar gift to someone who isn't expecting it, you may just end up straining your relationship - remember, they may feel bad about not giving you something in return or giving you something trivial. On the other hand, there are some people who this probably won't offend. If it's a customer instead of a business associate, you can probably get away with a gift of any value - just tell them how much you value their business and how good a customer they've been. They won't feel like they "owe" you anything in return.
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