The corporate Christmas party is more than just a fun time for employees.
It’s an investment in your company’s future success, with long-term value that lasts beyond the event. End-of-year (EOY) celebrations promote stronger bonds between individuals and their place of work, and help to broaden and deepen the connections between colleagues.
Read on to discover 7 ways to rethink your Christmas Party as a strategic touchpoint that supports workplace happiness and, ultimately, better business outcomes.
1. Boost employee retention
Making time and effort to celebrate the year’s hard work goes a long way to making people feel genuinely appreciated. Whether the event is a lower-budget or high-end production, the gesture of recognising everyone’s contribution in a festive spirit does not go unfelt. The Christmas party just might just be the deal-breaker for individuals who’ve been toying with the idea of changing employers.
2. Inspire high performance
Combining the work Christmas party with an awards night has been a strong trend in recent years:
- Year-end sees the completion of many projects, making it an ideal time to assess outcomes and reward high performers
- Cost-effectiveness of rolling awards and EOY into one event
- Public awards inspire many employees – both recipients and non-recipients – to achieve even more in the year ahead
The EOY party can help boost individual productivity and, thereby, organisational success.
3. Strengthen team dynamics
As the saying goes, ‘The team that plays together stays together.’
The EOY celebration allows people to interact with co-workers on new levels. In a social context, they are more likely to have non-work conversations and appreciate one another better.
Perhaps you didn’t know that Stephen from IT has 6 children, or that Miriam from HR plays hockey with the Australian Masters team. Even small snippets of conversation help to forge new connections that strengthen the dynamics both within teams, and between teams.
The team that plays together stays together - 7 Reasons You Need An Awesome Work Christmas Party Click To Tweet4. Build company culture
Bringing staff together for an EOY celebration is a perfect opportunity to ‘walk the talk’ of company values:
Explicitly
Use speeches to draw links between achievements and company values
Implicitly
Actively demonstrating company values through celebrating and rewarding employees
5. Deliver key corporate messages and plans for the year ahead
The end-of-year party is a great time to plant seeds of enthusiasm for the year ahead, and announce new products, new strategies, new programs. It doesn’t need to be a complete run-down – just enough to tempt the tastebuds – because it is a party, after all!
How to pitch benefits of a work Christmas party to your boss - 7 great reasons! Click To Tweet
6. Develop staff
Planning the corporate Christmas party is a great opportunity for staff development. Depending on the size and scope of your event, it is an ideal project to give people experience in:
Event management
Junior EAs can learn the ropes of event management
People management
More senior EAs managing ‘direct reports’ who are allocated for the term of the event project
Budget management
Develop skills in budget tracking and resource allocation.
7. Fun
The Christmas party, in whatever form or shape it takes, is a reward for a year of hard work. It carries enormous value that stretches beyond the event itself, and the fun factor is a big contributor to this. At the end of the day, who doesn’t want to let their hair down and have a great time?
Here's 7 ways to win over your boss to put on an awesome Christmas Party Click To TweetSummary
The end of the year is a busy time, and it’s easy to start running out of steam when it comes to ‘nice-to-haves’ like staff parties. I hope this article inspires you to rethink the Christmas Party or EOY event as a powerful cultural piece that engages, motivates and revitalises individuals, teams and your entire business.
Next steps
- Hot tips on how to plan your work Christmas party.
- Discover 9 new Christmas entertainment ideas for your event.
- Manage your Christmas event with ease – download a handy event run sheet template free
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