Prepare
Employees for Holiday Parties
By Nathan
Jamail
It is that time year for company parties and year-end sales events,
events that leaders spend lots of money and time planning and
putting together to show their employees how much they appreciate
their hard work and recognize their top performers. But you can bet
many of them will have the hangover of that famous question the next
morning, “Hey did you see that guy or girl last night at the company
event?” That question can elicit many answers and some may sound
like, “Oh yeah, everybody did when he got on the microphone and
slurred profanity for everybody to hear. Or, “Did you see that girl?
She was so drunk; she was saying all kinds of inappropriate things
to her boss.”
I can guarantee his or her boss remembers it and their boss
remembers it and they are for sure talking about it, but not as a
funny story at the coffee pot. No, they are talking to HR or legal
on how they are going to handle the situation. Many great careers
have been ended at company events by someone being that guy or that
girl. I have fortunately have not been that guy or girl as far as I
know, but unfortunately, I have been the boss of a few in my
career.
In 2000, our area had our annual planning session and awards event.
This event was hosted by my boss, the Area Vice President and all of
my fellow directors and all of our managers and sales reps were in
attendance with an estimated 300 employees. It was the first night
and until then we’d made it through the first day without any major
incidences, but it was still early. Later in the evening after
dinner, many of the employees went to the bar in the hotel to
continue celebrating and having fun with their peers from across the
country. A few of us managers were in a room with my boss having a
discussion on how the event was going and reviewing the next day’s
activities when another manager walked in and said, “one of the
employees is throwing up in the middle of the bar.” With confidence
I said, “I know it’s not one of my people.” I was confident because
I had a talk with my team prior to this event on how everybody needs
to act. We discussed dress code, good and bad topics to discuss in
public and under no circumstance do you want to be the person that
sees the bartender leave to go home. Since I just had this
conversation about the do’s and don’ts, I knew it could not have
been one of my people.
Well, I have been wrong a lot in my life and tonight was no
different. The manager then looked at me and said, “Actually, it is
your employee.” I instructed her immediate supervisor to have one
of the other female employees to get her safely to her room
immediately. Now, this was not a terminating offense, but it was a
“that girl” event. Needless to say, she was embarrassed the
remainder of the event. I bet she remembers the advice we gave her
following corporate events. Here are a few simple company or
business event rules:
-
Use the 2 drink
maximum rule or if you have low tolerance, then soda is probably
what you should stick with.
-
Remember no matter
your surroundings, you are still at work.
-
Don’t be the last one
at the bar, because you probably broke the 1st and 2nd
rules.
-
Have fun.
-
Make sure someone
else is “That guy or girl!”
Take it from the boss of that guy or girl, the story never has good
ending when you are that person. What is a company to do?
Many leaders are doing fewer events and some are eliminating them
all together to help avoid the human resource and legal issues that
happen so often during these events. This is a mistake that can and
will cost the company good employees and good morale. Keep doing
the events, and focus on educating the teams on the appropriate
behavior ahead of time. Know at every event there will be that guy
or that girl and you can deal with them, but the good news there are
those remaining hundreds of great employees talking about that
person and how thankful they are to be working for a company that
shows how much they appreciate them. Events can be expensive and a
pain for many leaders, but they are cheap compared to unmotivated
and unhappy employees and clients. Have a great end of the year and
Merry Christmas to everybody!
Read other articles and learn more about
Nathan Jamail.
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