By Adam Turteltaub

Few issues are more complex or more open to small things turning in to very big problems than gifts and entertainment policies.  Even the seemingly smallest gift to a government official can open up a very large can of words.

To bring perspective on this compliance challenges, we spoke with Meredith McMonigal U.S. Gifts & Conflicts of Interest Officer at the engineering firm WSP.  Meredith had recently been involved in a comprehensive review of the WSP gifts and entertainment policy.

Listen in on this podcast as she discusses:

* The importance of coordinating gifts and entertainment policies both globally and locally

* Managing differences between working with the private and public sectors

* The importance of starting with the global policy and ensuring consistency

* Ensuring that the policy will work operationally

* Viewing the policy as a work in progress so that it can evolve to meet unanticipated situations

* Using employee training to both share the policy and to learn about issues that you may not have considered

* Being mindful of client gift and entertainment policies, as well as for conflicts of interests

* The value of having a gift registry

* Using the registry to automate compliance auditing and monitoring