Christmas Party Edition

Long-time readers know that every year I publish a light-hearted Christmas edition before I go on my December hiatus. This year, I found two topics I wanted to write about, but one of them fit better to the pre-Christmas time, which is why I publish it today. Next Friday, you will receive the official Christmas edition.

It is early December and that means for many of us the company Christmas party is scheduled in the next couple of weeks. These relaxed-but-not-so-relaxed corporate events can be a minefield for employees, and they are far from being a guaranteed success.

So, if you are tasked with organising a company Christmas Party or simply about to attend one, we have to thank Hannes Zacher, who conducted a study of employees in 800 companies and the factors that drove satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the event. This may sound easy at first, but Zacher created a big challenge for himself by conducting this survey in Germany and – well – see below:

In any case, his analysis provided some useful insights into what makes a Christmas Party fun. First, it doesn’t matter when the Christmas party is held or whether it is Christmas-themed or not. People just want to have a party, that’s all.

But there are a couple of factors that influence satisfaction or dissatisfaction with a party as shown below. The items in each box are listed from most impactful to least impactful.

If we look at what increases satisfaction with the party, it is not something about the party itself but about the culture of a company. If a company uses the opportunity presented by the Christmas party to share positive company values that are practiced in the company year-round, then that has the most significant positive impact on satisfaction with the party. Similarly, if a company has a culture where employees feel like they can be open with each other and share personal details if they feel part of an extended family, satisfaction with the Christmas party increases. Obviously, these are factors that need to be honed and practiced all year round, so if you work for a company that doesn’t live its values or has meaningless values that are not fulfilling (‘our value is to be profitable or to make as much money as we can’ is one such example) or if the culture in your company is one where people are very competitive with or even suspicious of each other, then forget about having a good Christmas party.

Besides these cultural drivers, a Christmas party should be fun. Planning fun activities increases satisfaction with the event while providing a more formal environment or witnessing other people’s heavy drinking reduces satisfaction and increases dissatisfaction. One way to reduce dissatisfaction (though it does little to increase satisfaction) is to offer both alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks at the party.

Oh, and make sure the boss gives a speech. While these speeches do nothing to increase satisfaction with the party, not giving a speech or not even showing up will be resented a lot by the employees present at the party. And for heaven’s sake make it a fun and uplifting speech, not something that is about business, profits, or the challenges ahead. You want people to be happy, not depress them.

Drivers of satisfaction with Christmas parties

Source: Zacher (2023)