If Christmas is a time for giving then it seems the message isn’t getting through to nearly enough office managers. For the umpteenth year running, I’m getting the annual stream of resigned-sounding complaints from friends who have office-based careers.
Office life has its perks, of course; unlike my mostly-bed-and-airport-based freelance life, you actually know what you’re going to be paid at the end of each month. But my decision to accept the Faustian pact of being a sole trader never feels more validated than when my pals tell me about the plan for their office Christmas party – and the demand that they pay for it themselves.
Millions of workers endure this seasonal act of ill will, resentfully rummaging through their overdrafts to subsidise their employers’ attempts at festive bonhomie. Because, in the greatest act of festive humbug since Scrooge first uttered the word, we’ve somehow normalised the idea that employees should shell out for their own Christmas do. Back in 2018, research found that 60 per cent of workers were expected to pay towards their office Christmas bash – and I’d wager it’s probably even more now.
Let’s be absolutely clear: this is wrong. The Christmas party is not a collective whip-round for a departing colleague. It’s a gesture of gratitude, the annual ‘thank you’ for another 12 months of putting up with meetings that could have been emails and bosses who think ‘circle back’ is a verb. When management decides that staff should chip in, they’re not being inclusive. They’re being miserly.
It wasn’t always like this. In the post-war decades, industrial Britain excelled at festive magnanimity. Cadbury, that Quaker-founded paragon of paternalistic capitalism, threw enormous Christmas feasts for its workers at Bournville: tables groaning with puddings, a brass band, even presents for the children.
My more seasoned friends have recalled to me how advertising agencies turned the Christmas bash into an Olympic sport. Saatchi & Saatchi’s 1986 extravaganza in London’s Docklands featured funfair rides, a full-sized merry-go-round and a champagne river said to have cost £80,000 – equivalent to nearly a quarter of a million pounds today. The following year, the company converted an entire warehouse into a mock high street with shops, restaurants and cocktail bars. Crucially, the staff didn’t pay a penny.
Of course, most of us would be satisfied with something infinitely more modest. Yet the majority are being asked to put their hands in their pockets for whatever excuse for a gathering their employer comes up with. This parsimony occurs despite the fact that HMRC, in an uncharacteristically generous mood at this time of year, still allows firms to claim up to £150 per employee as a tax-deductible expense for an annual party.
It should be a gesture of gratitude, the annual ‘thank you’ for another 12 months of putting up with meetings that could have been emails and bosses who think ‘circle back’ is a verb
So let’s dispense with the idea that ‘times are tough’ and employers simply can’t afford to be generous. This isn’t about budgets; it’s about attitude. A Christmas party is an investment in morale. If the boss won’t put £100 or so behind the bar for a round or two of drinks then what does that say about their regard for the people who keep their business alive? If you ask the staff to pay for the stilton and crackers then gratitude becomes transaction, like asking wedding guests to cover the cost of the bride and groom’s confetti.
Nothing says ‘we value you’ less than an email as December dawns saying ‘Xmas party payment due by Friday’. It also destroys any nominal attempts at inclusivity – when staff have to pay to attend the office Christmas bash, those on the lowest wages often stay home. Suddenly the ‘all together now’ message collapses, and the very people most deserving of a night off (the receptionists, the junior assistants, the cleaners, the night-shift crew) are excluded by the price tag – if they are even invited at all.
When management picks up the tab for a few drinks down the local and a trestle table with some mince pies and a cheese board, it signals something far larger than the bill itself. It says: we recognise you. You matter. You’ve earned this. That sentiment, once genuine, is now too often replaced by a passive-aggressive spreadsheet marked ‘staff contribution’.
So to every boss mulling whether to make staff pay for the booze and canapes, I urge you to dip into the coffers. Be munificent for one evening of the year. And to the employees, if your firm still won’t fork out, you have two choices. Simply boycott the ‘official’ bash and have your own drinks party in another pub. Or start applying for other jobs. Because if a boss won’t even stump up for a pint and a mince pie for his staff, it seems likely that their new year’s resolution will be to attempt, by any means necessary, to delay a winding up order.
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