ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 15, 1996 TAG: 9612140010
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MEGAN SCHNABEL STAFF WRITER
If you've been invited to a company Christmas party and haven't attended one in, say, five or 10 years, you may want to take a crash course in proper party behavior.
No longer is it polite to drink highballs until you fall into the punch bowl, or tell the vice president what nice legs she has, or dance on the buffet table singing the Pia Colada Song.
These are the mid-'90s - the politically correct, don't-drink-and-drive mid-'90s - and office parties just ain't what they used to be.
And we can all be thankful for that, says Bayard Harris, a lawyer with the Center for Employment Law in Roanoke. Not all companies were guilty of letting holiday spirit override common sense, of course, but holiday bashes could get pretty raucous.
"Most of the parties in this neighborhood were open-bar, hard liquor, pound-it-down-and-forget-the-consequences," he said.
Now Harris counsels companies on how to keep their parties safe and politically correct. "More than a handful" of the center's clients have changed their alcohol policies, he said. Some have eliminated alcohol altogether or at least hard liquor. Others have instituted per-person limits or cash bars, or they've even implemented official policies regarding appropriate party behavior.
But that doesn't mean parties have to be boring. Vitramon Inc., for instance, knows how to throw a holiday bash.
The Roanoke company is in the serious business of producing ceramic chip capacitors for electronic circuits, but its management is known for cutting loose at least one night of the year.
There was the year of the hula-hoop contest, for instance. And the time the plant manager led everybody around the room dancing the Locomotion.
And then there was last year's men's "hot legs" contest, when the guys rolled their trousers to the knee to flaunt their hairy calves.
"It turned out to be more of a socks contest, really," acknowledged Sandra Moore, the company's spokeswoman. "But it was all in good fun." The new plant manager has planned yet another surprise for this year's party, she said.
But for the most part, corporate parties "do seem to be getting a lot tamer than they used to be," said Jeffrey Nicholas, a workplace psychologist at Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pa. "This society has become very litigation-crazy," he said.
A company - or an individual, for that matter - that serves alcohol stands to be sued if a guest is involved in a drinking-related accident. And even when alcohol isn't an issue, corporate hosts now must monitor the behavior of their guests more closely than ever, because the same suggestive comments or sexual advances that were tolerated at holiday parties just a few years ago are today likely to result in formal complaints, or even lawsuits.
One Roanoke lawyer recalls attending, as a guest, a Christmas party held four or five years ago by a now-defunct accounting firm. He heard plenty of sexual comments and even witnessed some suggestive touching.
"I just wanted to hand out my card," he said. "That was a sexual harassment suit waiting to happen."
Whether companies actually would be found liable in cases involving drinking or harassment depends on the circumstances - whether alcohol was unlimited, for instance, or whether supervisors witnessed inappropriate behavior but didn't stop it. But most businesses would rather not take any chances anymore, so they're cutting back on alcohol consumption and training their employees and managers to party more carefully - and to consider the party as an extension of the workplace rather than a place to cut loose.
But because celebrations done right can foster team spirit - still the rage in corporate circles - even companies with economic problems hesitate to cut out Christmas parties altogether, said Dale Winston, chairman of Battalia Winston International, a New York executive search firm that has recently surveyed 102 American companies about their holiday events.
In fact, corporate America is partying - or at least throwing parties - like never before. Battalia Winston's survey showed holiday parties have reached a six-year high, with 97 percent of the firms holding some kind of celebration. That's up from 89 percent last year and from 16 percent in 1990, during the depth of the recession.
The survey found that almost a third of the companies polled planned to hold more lavish affairs than last year, while just 6 percent were cutting back.
In Southwest Virginia, hotels, country clubs and caterers have been booked solid for months. Robbie Whitehead, a sales manager for the Holiday Inn-Tanglewood, said her hotel will host close to 75 parties in December. Some companies have even had to settle for January dates because they waited too late to make reservations. The hotel already is accepting reservations for the 1997 holiday season, she said.
The Roanoke Times recently sent surveys to about three dozen local businesses seeking facts about holiday events for their workers. A dozen outfits responded.
Three of the companies said they don't throw companywide Christmas parties, although two of those said individual departments usually hold potluck lunches or small parties. Three said they hold two parties each year: one company throws an afternoon party for employees' kids and a nighttime one for workers and spouses; the other two have separate parties for managers and other workers.
Four firms said they would serve alcohol, although one of those requires guests to buy their own drinks and another limits guests to two free drinks per person. None of them said they'd ever had problems with alcohol consumption, and none have changed their parties significantly in recent years.
Most of the companies that said they are having parties also said they'll pay for the whole thing, at a cost of usually $20 or less per person. Christmas bonuses aren't given at any of the responding companies, although three said employees get a ham or a turkey or door prizes at the party.
"Parties have a business value," Winston said. "Christmas parties build camaraderie among employees and inspire positive regard for the company."
Harris agreed.
"The Christmas get-together is very much part of the business community," he said. "It's sort of expected."
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