Corporate Gifting: The Ultimate Guide

When you run a business, you understand how important your employees are to your success. Business gifts can be for employee recognition or client appreciation. Building industry relationships is essential to growing and sustaining your business. 

When an employee reaches an achievement, milestone, or just because, it can be nice to send your thanks to the employees that make your business what it is.

Similarly, when you close a deal with a client, it can be kind to send a thank you for their business or to celebrate your mutual success. Client gifts can help you stay in touch with loyal clients, letting them know they’re always on your mind.

Whatever the reason, corporate gifting is a great practice. Picking the perfect gift takes some thought — you want to find something functional, practical, and aesthetically pleasing. You also want to make sure that your gift supports a message personal to you. 

Need some assistance in your gifting experience? Read on for the ultimate guide to corporate gift-giving. 

What Is Corporate Gifting?

Before we dive into the details and rules of corporate gifting, it’s time to review everything encompassed under the umbrella of corporate gifting. Any time that your business is giving a gift to an individual (whether an employee, client, or similar), it is considered corporate gifting.

This includes things like:

• Birthday gifts for employees
• Holiday gifts
• Wedding gifts
• Welcome gifts to new employees or clients

Why Should Your Business Use Corporate Gifting?

Corporate gifting is about long-term success. Presents may cut into your profits initially, but the client and employee retention possibilities could end up saving money in the long run. 

Here are a few of the best benefits that you get when your business participates in corporate gifting: 

Build and Maintain Relationships With Existing Clients

The best corporate gifts will let your clients know that your relationship with them matters extensively. You can give gifts after signing a contract or when reaching significant milestones.

Improve Employee Retention

The final reason that your business absolutely must start using corporate gifting is to reduce employee turnover. Employee turnover is a major cost to your business. The current job market puts the power in the hands of workers; there are more options than ever when selecting a position.

By giving your employees gifts, you show them that they matter to you. Companies that struggle with frequent turnover might see improvements in employee morale with options like generous time off, benefits, and unique gifts.

Gift options can include physical gifts as well as virtual events. Companies see a huge increase in production numbers and quality output when people look forward to coming to work.

Things To Keep in Mind When Corporate Gifting

While corporate gifting is a smart practice in most cases, there are a few things that your business needs to keep in mind when giving gifts.

Taxes and Corporate Gifting

If there is one thing that manages to find its way into just about every aspect of running a business, it is taxes. Corporate gifting is no exception to this rule, and you should expect to deal with some tax rules when giving gifts. 

There is a small tax benefit for corporate gifts. You can deduct $25 from the cost of gifts per individual per year. Unfortunately, spending that exceeds the $25 limit is typically not tax-deductible.

You should also be wary of giving your employees gift cards as gifts. Often, technically these are not gifts at all but are considered income. As such, you must withhold taxes from a portion of their gift. Some gift recipients might be ok with this, and others might not be. You can always include your employees in your gift selection to ensure that every present is perfect. 

Industry Restrictions on Accepting Gifts

Some of your clients will have restrictions on accepting gifts. Many employees are allowed to accept gifts from clients within a particular cost or value threshold, but some higher-up workers and management, as well as federal employees, cannot accept gifts.

If you plan to give a gift to an employee at another company, feel free to call and ask about their gifting policy beforehand so that you can give a gift that they can accept. You should also take this as an opportunity to clarify your own rules regarding gifts. This way, your employees will know the expectations when they receive a gift.

Setting a Policy and Strategy

Suppose you decide to start giving gifts to employees for certain events, milestones, and achievements. In that case, you will quickly discover the importance of setting clear policy and strategy choices beforehand. This will help prevent issues of favoritism and corruption — not just amongst employees but with outside clients as well. 

You should think about what situations should warrant gifting, the budget for different kinds of gifts, and how you will send them. Having a clear policy outlined is the only way to avoid confusion in gray areas, which could be a recipe for disaster. 

Choosing the Right Gifts

Now that you know all of the regulations, strategies, and benefits behind corporate gifting, it’s time to fill out those gift baskets. You want to give gifts that are useful, high-quality, and enjoyable. You’ll probably want to avoid cliche gifts like flimsy stress balls or poorly constructed pens that will simply get thrown away or occupy space in a junk drawer. 

What you want is a practical and personal gift without being too flashy or outrageous. This will look different for every client and employee, but a great way to keep things generally in line is to try and keep gifts aligned with your company values.

What Are Some Corporate Gift Ideas?

All of our offerings at Patriot Coolers, from hard-sided camping coolers to insulated tumblers and water bottles, to hats and everything in between, would make perfect corporate gifts.

A Corporate Gift That Backs Your Values

“It’s not personal; it’s just business,” is such a tired saying. Give this a twist by attaching a personal message to your presents. Look for gifts that represent your business and the passions and interests of the intended recipient. 

Patriot Coolers are all about durability, built battlefield-tough to withstand whatever life throws your way, and top-notch quality, keeping food and drinks ice cold day in and day out. We are also supporters of our nation's Veterans. Proceeds from every purchase go to Homes For Our Troops: a non-profit helping severely injured Veterans find specially adapted housing solutions. 

Handy Gifts and Everyday Essentials

The best corporate gifts will improve their everyday loadout. To get the full benefit from corporate gifting, give people presents they will use and love. 

Consider insulated drinkware, ranging from our coffee mug to our water bottle and canteens to our tumblers. All Patriot Coolers’ drinkware keeps cold drinks ice cold for 24 hours or hot drinks hot for up to six hours. So, whether at your desk or by the campfire, you can drink at your own pace. 

Our Rotomolded Hard Coolers are perfect for clients and employees who love the outdoors, hunting, camping, hiking, or fishing. The 20-quart and 50-quart sizes can keep ice frozen for up to five days, acting as a portable refrigerator on your camping and hunting trips. 

Make It Custom

Custom gifts are the ultimate “out of the box” type of gift box item. For a fun spin, incorporate your company logo on your gift. When employees or clients bring along a water bottle or mug with your logo, it reminds them of your relationship. Plus, these individualized gifts serve as a unique form of advertising. 

Corporate Gifting: Wrapup

Giving corporate gifts is a key strategy to help build and maintain client relationships, close deals, and keep employee turnover low.

Just make sure that you keep in mind the tax deduction limits at $25 per person, and be sure that you are also aware of any client restrictions on gift receiving to avoid an awkward situation.

To help avoid confusion and issues at your business, you should revisit your company gifting strategy. Setting policy on when gifts should be given, price limits on different types of gifts, and other details can avoid confusion and accusations of favoritism or corruption within your organization.

Send out items that people will use and love using to get the most out of your investment. Patriot Coolers’ offerings are a great choice for corporate gifts that are built tough. Inspired by the toughness of our Veterans and military, our products belong on the battlefield and in the boardroom.

Sources:

Gift-Giving Policies for the Workplace | HR Daily Advisor

Income & Expenses 8 | Internal Revenue Service

Guidance for federal employees on gift giving | Article | The United States Army