City AM covers Igniyte’s office Christmas party research

Popular business publication City AM has featured Igniyte’s research revealing how UK employees behave at their office Christmas parties, and how they were planning to behave that year.

The research – on over 1,000 UK employees across eight different sectors – revealed that one in four are planning to “drink less” at this year’s office Christmas event for fear of embarrassing themselves. It also found that one in five said they fully expect to embarrass themselves in some way.

Breaking the results down by sector found that the property sector appear to get into the most trouble following their Christmas party antics, with 1 in 10 property employees admitting they’d received a verbal or written warning following the work event, and 8% had even been fired!

A massive 40% of travel employees admitted to flirting with a colleague at their work Christmas party, and 42% admitted kissing a colleague.

The office Christmas party is certainly a chance to celebrate the end of a year’s hard work and let your hair down with colleagues, but sometimes, inappropriate behaviour can go too far and it becomes a HR issue.

Without taking away from the festive cheer and celebratory atmosphere, you can implement some loose guidelines for staff that will clearly state what behaviour is and isn’t acceptable, which will help to protect your staff and also your company’s reputation.

Take a look at our free guide here for some practical advice on how to implement a social media policy and guidelines on employee behaviour at work-planned events, even when they’re outside of work hours.