favor to the employee. I mean, I see my coworkers for 40 hours every week,
and even though I like and get along with them, I like to see somebody else
on the weekends and in the evenings. Besides, there are so many obligations
this time of year that it's very difficult for me to attend a Saturday night
event any weekend in December.
My current employer selects a Friday a week or two before Christmas and
closes the office and treats everybody to lunch. We go to a nice restaurant,
order a couple bottles of wine, eat a nice meal, and chat and have fun
together. Holiday bonus checks are handed out, and then after the dessert
plates are cleared everybody goes home.
I personally LOVE this plan, and think it's the best possible way to show
employees you care: the event takes place on company time, not on personal
time, it doesn't cost the employees anything, it's not as expensive as a
Saturday night bash since there's no open bar and since lunch food is cheaper
than dinner food, etc etc. I wouldn't want to attend my partner's holiday
work party, nor would my partner want to attend my holiday work party. Too
much of a hassle, and too many strange people who one of us knows but the
other doesn't. Doesn't seem like a rip-roaring time to me.
My first employer after college hit on a nice compromise between corporate
demands and wanting to do something nice for the employees: they had a
cocktail hour with heavy hors douerves that started at 4:30pm and ran until
7:30pm on a Thursday or Friday before xmas. There was enough food for a
dinner, and they'd invite vendors and the people who oversaw our contracts to
come schmooze...we were all welcome to invite spouses, partners, or a close
friend to join us. Office hours there ended at 5:30, and you could slip out
after 5 if you wanted to. It was a nice favor; since the party ran into the
evening people could involve the close people in their lives after they got
off of work if they wanted to, but if you had other obligations or just
wanted to go home after work hours you could do so and nobody would look down on you.