How to Throw a Safe and Fun Office Party

While it is no secret that high employee morale can improve the work environment, it can also have a very direct effect on your bottom line through factors such as turnover, customer satisfaction, and productivity. This is an issue as old as the concept of business, but modern shifts in the workplace have changed the ballgame in many ways. Perhaps most notable in this regard is the rise of remote work, which has posed the challenge of maintaining company culture and promoting positive social interactions while employees spend the majority of their time apart.

Whether the company is remote, hybrid, or in-house, one excellent solution is to intermittently host an office party. These can be held for holidays, significant company milestones, or almost any other reason you can think of. Company parties offer employees the chance to mingle with their coworkers, have fun, and build culture, while it offers employers the opportunity to show their employees that their work is valued.

However, a company should approach such events with care. When a business is sponsoring and hosting an event, it should ensure that the event will be safe and accessible for attendees. Therefore, a company must consider safety and accessibility at every stage of the planning process.

Create a Planning Committee

It will be necessary to plan every component of your office party with care, and therefore, you will need to be organized. Perhaps the best way you can achieve this is by establishing a planning committee. A planning committee can help bring a variety of viewpoints and considerations to the table, and ensure that planning tasks are coordinated.

Ideally, the committee should be established at least a month before the event, to ensure that there is enough time to seek further input, set arrangements, receive items, and review. While the planning committee will consist of a select group of employees in charge of party planning, it is also important to seek input from your workforce at large through polls about considerations such as theme, venue, and food.

Don’t Make Attendance Mandatory

Because a company event is meant to make employees feel valued and rewarded, it is important that it is not compulsory. Rewards shouldn’t come with strings attached. This is especially true as it pertains to physical attendance, as employees may prefer not to attend in the interest of work-life balance, and your company should support that balance.

However, your event will not be as successful if you do not have a decent number of attendees. The best strategy is not to make the event mandatory, but to make the event something that employees truly want to attend. This can largely be accomplished by polling employees for their opinions on various considerations. Additionally, it can be helpful to offer remote attendance options for greater flexibility and accessibility.

Set Policies in Place

It may not be obvious to all attendees how to navigate the shift from formal and professional to casual and relaxed for an office party, so it can be helpful to share some basic etiquette guidelines. Although you shouldn’t make employees feel like they are being babysat, it will be necessary to set some rules for the sake of safety and accessibility. Many of these rules will likely already be in place as company policy, and it will be important to indicate which sections of company policy will still be in place.

Because these rules will be for the sake of attendees’ wellbeing, they should largely focus on safety and accessibility, e.g. policies regarding harassment and reckless behavior. Policies should be approved by both management and the party planning committee, and should be sent out to employees for their review well before the date of the event.

Choose an Appropriate Theme

You want the party to be enjoyable, so you will need to choose a theme that is fun but isn’t likely to make anyone uncomfortable. This is another aspect of the event that should be determined by the planning committee with the input and/or support of other employees. Above all, it is vital that the theme does not make anyone feel unsafe, and does not negatively depict or infringe on anyone’s identity or culture. Common sources of inspiration for themes include holidays, pop culture, games, or even specific meals.

Provide Food and Drink

Food and drink are a central part of any good event, and this is no exception to concerns about safety and accessibility, as many people have dietary restrictions. Therefore, employees should be asked to disclose any dietary restrictions beforehand, so that the company can use that information to choose the spread.

Additionally, if the company chooses to serve alcohol at the event, it should take appropriate measures to promote safety and avoid liability. The company should take steps to ensure that alcohol can be legally served on the premises and through the chosen catering service. It may also be prudent to offer options such as event chauffeurs in the interest of ensuring that attendees can arrive home safely.

Carefully Select the Time and Venue

Even time and venue can impact the safety and accessibility of an office party. When choosing a time, you should consider factors such as school schedules and typical traffic patterns. Meanwhile, when choosing a venue, you should consider factors such as space needed, accessibility for people with mobility disabilities, licenses, potential safety hazards, and distance. Depending on your choices on this matter, it may be prudent to hire drivers to accommodate party-goers who have difficulty driving, are nervous driving at certain times of day, intend to consume alcohol, etc. It is even possible to hire drivers to drive the individual’s vehicle for them, ensuring they get home safely with their own car without having to take any risks or drive themselves.

Provide Entertainment and Activities

Entertainment and activities should be a central consideration for the event. These, also, should put safety and accessibility first. The following things should be taken into account:

• Can everyone physically participate in the activity?
• Will any minors be in attendance?
• Is there enough space?
• Are there any physical obstacles?
• Does everyone have appropriate tools to participate?
• Does anyone have an unfair advantage?
• Have the interests of the group at large been considered?
• Are we being sensitive to identity and culture?
  

Ideally, all of these decisions should be reviewed and signed off on by many different entities within the organization to ensure that nothing important is overlooked.