It's official: Employees don't like to party!

By Annie Waite, Global Editor of the Internal Comms Hub, Melcrum

The UK is a nation of party-poopers.

That's what we're led to believe is the case following the release of survey results from HR consultant, Croner.

It says that as many as two-thirds of workers would rather be dining with war criminals, cleaning out latrines, dodging bullets in Beirut or babysitting a gang of children with A.D.D. than socialising with colleagues at their Christmas work party. Ok, so they didn't actually list such extreme examples of where they'd rather be, but 63% of 1,209 British workers did say they'd prefer to be "anywhere" than at such an event.

Well, what a miserable lot!

As Melcrum's work Christmas party is imminent and fears of consuming one too many shandies doubtless abound, I was reminded of the article we've recently published on the Internal Comms Hub, which says the main reason for this un-festive behavior is a reluctance by employees to let their hair down with their workmates, with 41% of those that think Christmas parties are awful preferring not to socialize with colleagues outside of work at all. 

Gosh, is that the time?
So, if this sounds like a familiar scenario at your company, what can you do about it? Or rather, as communicators, what do you plan to do about it?

Do you too dread the party season and dream of a day when Christmas/Holiday parties no longer exist, or are you of the opinion that employees indulging in a bit of outside work socialising can only improve the work environment - like Mandy mentioned last month on here (Want to engage people? Start having more fun). Your thoughts, please. Do feel free to share your organisation's embarrassing work party stories too!

Soundtrack to the blog: "Everything's Gonna Be Cool This Christmas" by the Eels