Are big boozy work Christmas parties over for good?

Kyota.

I'm Chelsea Daniels and this is the Front Page, a daily podcast.

Presented by the New Zealand Herald. Tis the season to celebrate the.

End of year with your workmates on the company dime. But are the days of huge bashes and unlimited bar tabs long gone? They've always been high risk and loaded with illegal landmines, with employees towing the line between loose networking and plain unprofessional.

So should companies ditch the drama for direct deposits or is there still a little magic to the traditional Christmas work do? Today? On the Front Page, aut Professor.

Of Management Candace Harris's with us to take a look at work parties past, present, and yet to come. So Candace, how have you work Christmas parties evolved in recent years?

Yes? Look good question.

I mean traditionally when we think of a Christmas party, ideas of excess and chaos kind of come to mind.

And if you look at sort of movies, etc.

There's generally that with even a romantic subplot and all things that we don't really want at work in the modern age, so they have moved from those kind of lavish late night open bar type riscue behavior events through to being more modest, certainly better planned and structured, and more they work to be more inclusive, to bring a sort of a wider church of people rather than just those that are up for a late night you know party.

And they're not even called mostly Christmas parties anymore, are they. They're more like end of year celebrations. That's really important for diversity reasons.

Hey oh look, absolutely it is seen has been more inclusive. People do often appreciate and ignoment of Christmas at an interview celebration, but Christmas is one day as well, and people have worked hard all year, so it is nice to bring everyone together. You've got to consider also that with hybrid work arrangements, sometimes it may be the only time that we see someone from another division or someone perhaps more senior to where we're working.

So it is nice to bring people together.

Absolutely from an HR standpoint, what are the top legal or even reputational risks that come with these kind of get togethers.

Good question again, So under the Health and Safety and Workout two fifteen, employers do have what's called this primary duty of care as parties are legally work events, and that includes those that are held off site, so it's not just those in your physical kind of workplace. So the person undertaking the business does have this primary duty of care to.

Ensure that it is a safe event.

And so it's about planning for a safety event, working to sort of mitigate risk. But it is fair to say that a major risk often at work parties is alcohol and then the resulting things that can come from too much alcohol in terms of perhaps poor judgments being made, harassments of it is actually physical risks people tripping, falling, and then at the end of it, you know how people are actually getting home safe as well.

You also asked about reputational risk.

You know, one worry is that the Christmas party lives on forever through social media or also people are streaming the Christmas party live and saying, look at where I am at such a good time, and so it does sort of put a whole new era of reputational and also brand risk as well. Used to just be hr that were quite nervous about Christmas parties. I think you could put the marketing in the comms people in that camp as well.

Well. With alcohol obviously comes in appropriate conduct, blurred bound reason those safety issues that you spoke about as well. Work parties are obviously very high risk for employers. Have companies just decided to eliminate any possibility of misconduct really at these days?

Yeah, Look, some have gone alcohol free.

It is fair to say others may limit alcohol, and there's various ways you can do that. You may give staff two drinks tokens, and once they've used that, there is no cash.

Far. Another way is perhaps limiting the time of the event.

Putting it on during the day can be another thing. You know, the Christmas party is twelve or two and that is it. Historically some of them had a start time but no clear finish time. You know, there'd be sort of these eight hour extravaganzas, which so definitely there's much tighter boundaries put around them these days. And also the provision of zero alcohol options because which a lot of people have chosen not to drink for various you know, sort of health, cultural, religious reasons, et ce.

I read somewhere as well when I was researching this. Obviously this is a worldwide phenomenon. I read this really good quote.

It said alcohol does not cancel power dynamics, and even though your boss might be on the dance floor wearing a Christmas jumper or a funny hat or something.

There's still your boss.

And it was quite funny. One line, and I think it was from Yahoo or something. I'll have to find it, but it was like, you know, Mary holding her shoes at the dance floor are getting you to chug down your wine or something. Might be doing your performance review in three months time, you know, and having that in mind. And another quote is what experts have said to remember, if something feels thrilling at ten pm, ask yourself how it would read at ten am in the boardroom.

Very good point. Yeah, absolutely.

I mean we had very clear professional expectations for behavior for people all year. So it absolutely makes no sense that everything is free reign and you know, do what you want at this sort of six hour Christmas party. It's completely nonsensical. And you know, we haven't really researched Christmas parties in any great depth internationally.

But they can be quite career limiting for some.

That may be the thing that then carries you forward into next year. You know, the reputational risk for you individually in terms of your career, and then also not to mention perhaps for the organization various workplace relationships as well. I mean that may be the one thing that you then equate that leader with, is that crazy dancing, etc. So yeah, it's certainly risky territory.

If you have an annual party at your office, then you'll not it can be the greatest pit fall of the social year. Traditionally it's the night when the obvious boy shakes hands with the boss and his secretary gets to kiss him and then drink inside them. They can both tell you how to run the firm, but it's sometimes a party with a twelve month hangover and the next day really is important to remember what you said to whom the night before, whether you think it's a

And definitely you mentioned before, social media has completely changed the game. I saw an executive recently, actually within the last couple of weeks at National Australia Bank's offshoot it's called You Bank. They were asked to leave recently after a disturbing image was taken.

At a Christmas function.

So I suppose that social media has just completely flipped the switch.

Yes, well, you know, good Christmas parties these days are well planned and you plan to kind of mitigate in this sort of control for risk as well, Social media is a whole other dimension because people are sort of doing it individually as well, so you don't know who's taking pictures of what, posting what, and also when they're doing it.

You know, a post put up at two in the morning may not.

Be something that you would post, as you said, at ten am on your way to the boardroom. So absolutely that puts incredible risk. And it's also the idea of consent. You know, you busy posting a whole lot of things about your colleagues. They may not be very happy with that idea at all. But I think it comes back to that first thing I was talking about. This is a work event, so the kind of rules for proper behavior at work still matter.

I was having a conversation with a colleague the other day about this, and it feels like not only Christmas parties have kind of been diluted over the years, but I remember as a child going to my dads he worked at an insurance firm in Aussie and I remember those family fun days you know, like a big Christmas barbecue for all of the family and then he would

And I've spoke to a few people.

Around the office being like, oh, yeah, my dad's work had that, all my mum's worked, did this and did that?

Do you reckon?

It's just like a cost of living thing. Just you know, that's the first thing to cut, that's the first thing to go.

Yes, well, you know there's been a cost of living you know, sort of crisis at the household level, but also organizations really have looked at how to be fiscally responsible and so putting on big events, you know, it certainly costs.

And doing these things that are family freely.

You may not be spending a whole lot, perhaps on alcohol, but you will be spending on other things to make people feel welcome, to cater for a variety of dietary and personal food, likes to have perhaps activities that keep kids happy, because kids may turn up but they actually expect me in tained as well.

It costs a lot to get Santa down here from the North Pole.

Absolutely, and you know sometimes kids, they get a bit bored at your parents' work after a while unless the fun is sort of put on. I think though, you know, we don't have a really good understanding of the real diversity of ways that organizations, particularly in that small mediu ment price sector, do actually celebrate Christmas, you know, as a workplace at the end of the year in this country.

Yeah.

I also have heard the conversation obviously, the cost of living crisis is a bit pretty hard this year. Should works think about maybe instead of doing the cost per had lavish do down by the waterfront, just giving out some prezzy cards.

Yeah, I'm sure that's something that perhaps some employees would prefer.

A sort of chicken and egg, isn't it though?

With the voucher versus party, I mean, often the spend per head for the parties really has come down, So the voucher may actually be very modest and you may have completely forgotten what you even spent it on by a month later.

However, that chance to bring people together.

So there was actually quite a rare academic study done on Christmas parties in Germany that looked at three hundred and fifty nine employees across sectors, and they did actually find that the Christmas party can serve some good purpose in terms of uniting people, creating that sense of team morale, happiness in the workplace, as long as alcohol was controlled. Back to alcohol, Alcohol is the thing that created most dissatisfaction at parties.

But you're right.

I mean an organization may say there is no party this year. Here's a voucher, but I think some employees may be disappointed about how little that voucher may actually be and how quickly it's forgotten.

Yeah, we might be surprised what the cost per head is. Yeah, in terms of I mean it's a huge uphill battle since COVID four hospitality venues, I bet that when this time of year comes around, it's a huge hit in the arm for them.

Pay Yeah, that November December Christmas party spend is important.

It matters.

I think though that if anyone's good at sort of innovative practice, it certainly is the hospitality sector.

In New Zealand. So they've had to pivot a bit.

You know, there may be less of the three hundred people type parties. There may be those smaller sort of smaller group parties, and a lot of organizations are perhaps doing that as well, because the group that we don't talk about is essential workers and frontline workers. Those you know, people still need to be driving the buses in the hospital wards.

So finding ways to celebrate that.

And then the hospitality as a sector is very good at putting things on at different times of the day as well, so there may be more of that kind of daytime, smaller group type in a bitive thing.

And the hospitality sector certainly has.

Responded very well to trends such as you know, the complete explosion of the zero alcohol movement, etc.

What do you reckon the future is for work Christmas parties. It's not going to be something like on Love actually or Wolf of Wall Street.

Yeah, absolutely not. I think some of I think there'll be continuation of the many of the good practices that organizations have been using in terms of making sure that they're well planned and planned with an eye to inclusion, like what would most people enjoy rather than just the

Thanks for joining us, Candae.

Lovely and Merry Christmas, Chelsea.

Merry Christmas.

That said, for this episode of the Front Page, you can read more about today's stories and extensive news coverage at enzdherld dot co dot nz.

The Front Page is produced.

By Jane Ye and Richard Martin, who is also our editor.

I'm Chelsea Daniels.

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