In
these tough economic times, everyone is looking to cut expenses any way they
can. Hosting an employee Christmas party
can get expensive if you aren’t careful.
Several years ago, a colleague of mine in the residential cleaning
business confided about how frustrated she was with her employee Christmas
parties. She would spend several
thousand dollars each year securing a lovely banquet hall with a full sit down
dinner, music, and elegant décor, only to hear employees complain that they didn’t
want to go. If they did commit to
coming, many just never showed up. She
was tired of wasting so much money that she was considering making the event
“mandatory”! I helped her see that she
had it all backwards. Her employees
complained that they’d much rather have the money than
the banquet. This banquet was for her,
not her employees. It was a
demonstration of her own success and did not reflect her staff’s wishes or
style. She needed to come up with
another plan. That was a long time ago
and I don’t know how she resolved it or if she followed any of my advice. But if you are hosting an employee party that
no one wants to attend you may need to re-think the format of your
program. It doesn’t have to cost mint to
do it well. In fact, we’ve hosted our
banquet for years for under $1,000 for 40 to 50 attendees. We use a restaurant with a nice candle light
atmosphere, cloth napkins, and a buffet dinner.
We encourage our employees to dress up or come as casual as they like to
insure everyone is comfortable. Some
come in formals, others come in jeans.
We make sure they feel accepted in whatever attire they choose.
We’ve
had great success year after year with our Annual Employee Awards Banquet. We hold it at Christmas time in order to
“kill two birds with one stone”. We’ve
held our employee "Awards Banquet" every year for the past 17
years. Our employees love it and talk
about it all year long. If you start
this tradition, I encourage you to keep your expenses to a minimum so you can
afford to do it year after year even as you double and triple in size. You can watch my YouTube
video from last year’s event:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhF11ff6fHo
I’ll
have another one up soon, as our banquet is this coming Tuesday night,
1. We usually have a "Santa" who pulls
funny gag gifts out of his big black bag and hands them out with a funny
dialogue to various employees regarding the things that happened through out
the year ("Santa heard you found a dead snake under a pillow in the
Smith's home this Spring, we'll I brought you a bottle of snake oil to carry in
your cleaning caddy....." for example).
Come up with half a dozen funny things and gifts to give out. Never a “put down though” (like a watch for
someone who is always late), make sure the gag gifts don't hurt feelings or
make people laugh at someone else’s expense.
Santa makes them come up to him in front of everyone while he presents
them with the gift.
2. If someone on your staff sings, writes poems,
or plays a musical instrument (well), include them. We always do.
It's a nice touch to see their other side!
3. We include an "optional gift
exchange" for those who want to participate.
4. The HIGHLIGHT of our banquet is the
"DOOR PRIZE TABLE". We fill a
table with about $300 worth of goodies (ranging from $10 to $50), things like
lovely wine glasses, pretty place settings, Christmas wreath, lovely wall
hangings, inexpensive
5. Since this is our Christmas party and Awards
Banquet, we hand out our 3-year watches, 5-year watches, 6-year pearls, 10-
year trophies, and “Cleaning Tech of the Year” award, as well as other
recognition milestones.
Believe
it or not, we actually charge for this event.
We make the charge very low, but I believe people don’t value what costs
them nothing. People will be more likely
to no-show an event they didn’t pay for.
We charge $4.50 per person for a dinner than would cost them $15 to $20
if they ate there on their own. We allow
them to bring one adult guest only (no kids under 17). We only serve tea & coffee, but there is
a cash bar if they choose to purchase an alcoholic drink. This keeps expenses low and limits our
liability. By the way, we barter this entire
event! Only the tip to the wait
staff is paid in cash.
Employees
want to be recognized and appreciated.
This entire evening is centered around them, for them. We try to reflect their tastes, their styles,
their wishes. It’s not a time for us to
show off our style! I hope this helps
you throw a successful and meaningful employee holiday banquet or party!
Debbie Sardone