Year End Event/Company Holiday Party
CoffeeLover
2 Posts
I am a Human Resource Manager for a company with about 25,000+ employees. I've been given the initiative to review our holiday party in terms of cost, time spent planning and organizing and overall participation. On average, about 55% of our employees company wide attend the event. I've been asked to make a proposal - do we cut the event or keep it. Can you tell me if your company still has a holiday party and if so, is there a cost per head which can be spent and do you have any guidelines in terms of 2 drink tickets per attendee, venue (i.e., hotel vs. convention center), etc...
Comments
There's a social hour with hot and cold finger food before dinner (attendees are on their own for the libations) and then dancing to a live band, which we hire for the evening (we provide dinners for them also). A photographer we hire takes individual table pictures and candids all evening (we later post these in our Cafeteria, and employees can have their pictures).
We've already booked the same place for this year's holiday party.
1) The amount of time it takes to plan it (myself and another person make all the centerpieces to be raffled off) and do all the shopping gets cumbersome and only certain individuals are willing to help.
2) The drinking gets out of hand. While we try to reduce the drinking as much as possible we still have employees drink excessively and do things they shouldn't.
3) The complaining from employees regarding the dinner, the prizes, the company, etc. during the party really makes you ask "why".
I made the suggestion that we might get more participation for a company picnic in the summer but was informed that this was tried and nobody wanted to attend because the company wasn't supplying any alcohol.
While I think that this type of thing CAN be a good thing, I don't see us going through the trouble or expense again.
We didn't have a holiday party last year because of the fact that we had to reduce salary increases and spending $25,000 -$30,000 for a party would not be a "good thing" when you had to reduce increases.
We have had many of the same issues as you about HR having to do all the work, shopping, set-up, etc. for the party.
Also, the drinking mess gets worse every year. We don't serve hard liquor, only wine and beer, but it's amazing that people can get just as drunk off these and show their butts!
Complaints from others about something or other not being to their "liking" (Mind you, they don't ever offer to help put it together, but are quick to criticize every little thing).
We have cookouts for employees from time to time but have them during the lunch hours (11:30-1:30). Last year we served hot dogs, hamburgers and grilled chicken. We had a problem keeping our grill hot enough to get the chicken done. People were bitching and moaning about the chicken not being ready (after they had already consumed a hotdog and a hamburger). My CEO wants to do this again this year and I told him that I'd do it this year, but if I heard what I heard last year, I wouldn't do it again. These events aren't cheap either!
Picnics (or anything after hours) don't seem to be a very popular event with our crowd.
It's always a challenge trying to please everyone, isn't it?
Maybe it's because we get into the beer and wine that we can't keep the grill hot enough!
Instead, because we are located near Hershey Park, we decided to have an event there...each employee gets 2 tickets (additional tickets are 25.00)and we provide a buffet park lunch(usually picnic food). We choose to hold this on a Sunday because it's cheaper and means that we don't have to close on a workday.
Feedback from employees is that it's nice...and although we're not really "together" as a company....we have fewer work issues as a result...sometimes the stuff that happens at picnics and parties bleeds into work.