Years ago, the annual ritual of attending the office Christmas party was a most acceptable practice. Companies were known to throw lavish events with open bars flowing and food abounding. Stories about what happened at those parties kept the office filled with gossip for months afterwards.
Somewhere in time, the office Christmas party changed to a Holiday Party and in some cases, not all, they were scaled back. Articles started appearing months ahead providing caution on how to act at the party so that one’s reputation didn’t get tarished.
Now fast forward to our most recent recession. It wouldn’t be out of place to estimate that it was around 2008 – 2009 when many holiday parties were either cancelled or cut back in spending. So it was a bit of a surprise to learn that according to a recent survey by the Society for Human Resource Managers, 68% of companies plan to host such events this year. That number is up from 61% in each of the prior two years.
A well appreciated perk of yesterday, but how does today’s worker feel about it? A survey by Glassdoor, shows that just 4% of employees place a party among their top choices for holiday perks. 4% is pretty low. In some cases, people are reporting that they spend enough time at work so they don’t care to spend their off time with the same crew they see so many hours every week. New trends could be coming to light here. The question becomes, what, if anything, will replace the office holiday party?
