There to do seem to be many reasons out there why you shouldnt even think about having a New Years party in the office and I can say that some of this is down to personal experience and the rest is just well known.

So what are the major reasons?

Drink

Drink is certainly not something that you should mix in the office. There is nothing wrong with having just a few drinks with the office employees but I wouldnt say that you should go too far. I really would suggest you have a couple of drinks with the people you work with as it just improves the mood for the holidays.

Insurance

It had to be mentioned I’m afraid and although the insurance will cover many things that may be damaged from drink, fights and other things I am sure that not all office insurance policies will be happy to fork out hundreds and possibly thousands of pounds because the employees have been careless.

On top of this I will also say that a lot of small business insurance will not even cover you if you spill certain drinks like beer and wine over computers because those types of drinks are not generally acceptable in the work environment.

Just A Bit Of Personal Experience

We actually had part of our Christmas celebrations here in the office this year and luckily nothing got broken but I will say that if we had left the pub trip any later things would have kicked off. Drinks were being passed around left, right and centre and it didn’t help that we had all had a couple of beers at the bowling alley.

I will say again that if you are having a game of pool or playing poker there is no reason why you cannot have a few drinks along with it as long as you do not go too far. The problems only start occurring once people take the drinking too far and start to be careless of their surroundings.

Any Other Options?

There are so many options out there in which you can take the office party. You could perhaps go for a paid trip to a restaurant and hit the clubs and all of the employees would happily go out if they know their food is paid for. This is also very handy for management as sometimes it allows them to see how people really are outside of work. By no means should they try to get a bit of information from you that they can use against you in the office so be warned about this.

Tags: holidays, office, party