There are so many reasons why you shouldn’t have a New Years bash in the office and part of this comes from experience from the Christmas party and part of this is really just very obvious.
So what are the major reasons?
Drink
Drink is certainly not something that you should mix in the office. Having a couple of drinks is fine but the thing to remember about all of this is just do not go too far. Now that I think about it, I would really suggest having a few drinks with workers over the holiday season because it just makes things more laid back.
Insurance
It had to be mentioned I’m afraid and although the insurance will cover many things that may be damaged from drink, fights and other things I am sure that not all office insurance policies will be happy to fork out hundreds and possibly thousands of pounds because the employees have been careless.
On top of this I will also say that a lot of small business insurance will not even cover you if you spill certain drinks like beer and wine over computers because those types of drinks are not generally acceptable in the work environment.
Personal Experience
This year’s Christmas office party was partly held here and although nothing got broken I certainly feel that if we didn’t move on to the pub when we did there would have been a fair few broken computers. There were drinks coming around from all over the place and I do not think that the bowling alley beers we had previously helped us at all.
However I will say once again that there is nothing wrong with having a few in office games like pool, gaming or of course poker. When you think about it, the only time in which the problems seem to occur is when people take things too far.
Other Options?
Other than staying in the office there are actually many options out there to choose from. You could perhaps go for a paid trip to a restaurant and hit the clubs and all of the employees would happily go out if they know their food is paid for. Something like this is really great as you get to see people for who they really are, a couple of drinks is all it takes really. They certainly shouldn’t use any information they gain from the drinking session against you so make sure this doesn’t happen.
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