More Parties in '05

Dec. 15, 2005 — -- As the economy shows signs of strength, so does the office holiday party.

A survey by a personnel management firm found more companies saying they're sponsoring parties for employees this year than last, and more companies increasing their party budgets over last year's. Some of those planning to party hardier this year cited better profits as the reason. Other analysts say a tighter labor market means that employers want to do more to keep their workers happy.

"Or it could simply be that after several years of no- or low-cost parties, companies may think it is time to get back into the holiday spirit," said John A. Challenger, chief executive officer of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, the Chicago-based firm that surveyed 100 corporate human resource departments about their companies' holiday party plans.

It's a development that's certainly boosting business for restaurants, caterers and other party venues. Ridgewells Catering, the Washington, D.C.-area's biggest caterer, is having its busiest December in five years. In Newport Beach, Calif., Electra Cruises, which operates five charter party yachts, said every available night and weekend was booked by early November.

Even parts of the country on the fringes of this year's devastating hurricanes are in a festive mood. Mark's American Cuisine, a Houston restaurant housed in a renovated 1920s church, is booked solid for this entire month.

Only about a fifth of the companies surveyed said they don't plan a party this year. Most of those said say they never do, while about a third of them say it's because of company-wide, belt-tightening measures.

"If your employer cancels its holiday party, you may have to start worrying about your job," said Challenger.

Challenger said most workers aren't looking for an extravagant blowout. "They just want the company to recognize and reward their efforts," he said.

Raucous holiday office parties -- rendezvous in the broom closet, people dancing with lampshades on their heads, watercoolers spiked with alcohol -- were cinematic clichés in workplace comedies of the 1950s and 1960s (think "The Apartment" and "Desk Set"). When the arbitrage "masters of the universe" were riding high with their mergers and acquisitions in the 1980s, Wall Streeters partied "like it was 1999." And the high-tech boom made extravagance the norm in Silicon Valley in the 1990s.

But changing standards of behavior between the sexes, new sensitivity toward drunken driving, economic busts and 9/11 have brought a sobering trend. "By the dot-com-era standards, most of this year's holiday parties will be pretty tame affairs," said Challenger.

Maybe not so in Britain. An unscientific survey on a dating Web site found that two-thirds of those who responded said they'd kissed a colleague at a holiday office party and a third said they'd had sex with a boss. Almost half said they'd gotten so drunk, they couldn't remember what they'd done.

Indeed, one-third of the companies in the Challenger, Gray & Christmas survey that are not holding holiday parties cited potential legal liability as the reason why. And about 45 percent of the companies who are holding parties this holiday season said they would not be serving alcohol.

"It is not just companies that have to act responsibly," Challenger said. "It's even more important that employees be on their best behavior. Employees should consider the company party as an extension of the regular workday."

So put down that lampshade.