The holiday party: How to keep it from turning into the nightmare before Christmas

The office holiday party is a time for employees to get to know one another on a more personal level, let down their hair and have a little fun. But it can turn into a nightmare if you don’t plan ahead. So, if you’re tasked with planning the office holiday party, you should plan for all sorts of possible trouble. Aside from the usual challenges of party planning (choosing the party favours, decorations, menu items, music, liquor choices, etc.), company holiday parties also come with an additional list of potential headaches that can lead to significant legal liability for the company if they aren’t adequately planned for.

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Here are five tips to ensure your employees behave their usual best at your holiday bash:

1.    Remind all employees that as this is a company function they’re expected to behave in an appropriate manner and that the company has authority to deal with any issues that occur at the event. Set out that any unacceptable behaviour, including breaches of the bullying and harassment procedures, will be subject to the company disciplinary procedure in the same way as if they occurred in the workplace during normal working hours. Also, stress that the company has the right to investigate and take action relating to any activities out of work that have a detrimental impact within the workplace afterwards.

2.    Encourage responsible drinking. Try to limit the amount of free alcohol available to each person and ensure bar staff are instructed to refuse to serve alcohol where appropriate. Consider allowing unlimited soft drinks to all employees but limit any free alcohol to a responsible level. It shouldn’t be necessary for the employees to get drunk to enjoy themselves.

3.    Consider having designated non-drinkers from the management team who’ll be responsible for dealing with any issues that occur at the party before they get out of hand.

4.    Remind all workers of the obligation not to drink and drive and stress that anyone who drinks and drives in a company vehicle will be subject to disciplinary proceedings.

5.    Employees are responsible for their own actions. But your company can, however, be liable for the actions of its employees if it hasn’t taken reasonable steps to prevent inappropriate or unacceptable behavior, so be prepared.

While you contemplate that, have a look at the labour and HR news of the week:

SCORE BEE POINTS WITHOUT SELLING YOUR BUSINESS
Wed, 7th December 2011

Manage sick leave during the festive season…
Tue, 6th December 2011

Slash your recruitment costs by 45%...
Mon, 5th December 2011

Have a wonderful and safe weekend,

Until next time…

Marisa Viljoen
Managing Editor: The Practical Guide to Human Resources Management

P.S. Do you know the only two ways to postpone an arbitration?
The CCMA is generally reluctant to grant postponements and so its rules only allow you to postpone arbitration in two ways:

1. By agreement; or...
...for the second way, and everything else you need to know to win your case at the CCMA, click here.