Gift Policy

[michaelskis]

AICP, IMCA, and others have ethics policies pertaining to the acceptance of gifts. But does your place of work?

Recently my community adopted a zero gift policy for all. It was put in place late last summer and a memo of explanation went out. There was some grey area in the policy and a recent explanation too a very hard line. Not only are we not allowed to receive any gifts from developers, contractors or citizens, no gifts from other staff. This means no secret Santa, no buying new staff on their first day, or staff on their last day.

The only exception was is potlucks or food that is shared with all staff in-house and paper cards. (No gift cards)

Does anyone else have a similar policy? I am trying to find ways to show appreciation for my staff, does anyone have any ideas?

 

[Suburb Repairman]

Your policy is pretty strange--I haven't seen one that draconian. I'm honestly not sure I've seen one with a hard line on outside gifts like that, and I'm curious how meals out are treated. I have found that planners in general are about 50/50 on me buying lunch, and it sometimes varies based on whether there might be a project opportunity coming up. But the ones I do that with I'm tight enough to know to ask, or I'll actually avoid taking them out altogether if I think we're within a couple of months of bidding on something.