85% of UK bosses will spread festive cheer with Christmas party

14 December 2018 Consultancy.uk

Eight in ten British bosses are planning to reward the hard work of their staff over the past year with a festive party this Christmas. According to a new survey of UK based CEOs, the majority are expecting to pay over £30 per head at their seasonal celebration.

As business winds down at the end of a hectic 2018, many will be glad to see the back of a turbulent 12 months – even if further disruption awaits in 2019. Before all that though, many companies must still survive one final formality: the festive institution of the Christmas work-do. While being jolly in the season sounds a simple enough proposition, many employees are well aware this holiday tightrope walk is a degree more complicated than that, as they aim to strike the balance between being merry enough to shrug off a year’s anxieties, and restrained enough to look everyone in the eye the next time they’re in the office.

According to a new survey of 300 CEOs across the UK, this is a worry that many bosses also share. Business performance and leadership advancement organisation Vistage found that 24% of those planning to host a Christmas party said they found it difficult to relax during their hosting duties, while a further 12% said they would worry about the behaviour of staff at the event. Fortunately not every boss was afraid of the Christmas party yet to come, though, and a majority of 53% said they were more than happy to let go and enjoy themselves this December.

85% of UK bosses will spread festive cheer with Christmas party

In general, the bosses responding to Vistage’s poll were able to shrug off seasonal stereotypes and embrace the holiday spirit. However, a miserly minority of 15% confirmed that some archetypal Scrooge-esque employers do remain, stating that they were not planning to host a Christmas party. At the same time, 1% of those who were planning a festive shindig admitted that they expected their staff to pay their own way for the celebrations.

Fortunately, again, the majority were able to embrace the seasonal spirit of giving, with just over 84% of bosses planning to invest more than £30 per head in the event. One in five bosses said they would spend between £51-70 per head, and almost as many said they would spend between £71-100. 14% of the most generous CEOs surveyed, meanwhile, said they would spend over £100 per head on the event.

Commenting on the results of the survey, Geoff Lawrence, General Manager at Vistage, said, “It would be a sad day indeed were we to lose the tradition of the annual staff Christmas party. Thankfully, our research suggests there is little cause for concern. There might be one or two concerns about certain members of staff taking things a bit too far, but most bosses recognise the morale-boosting effect of allowing teams to let their hair down once in a while.”

Related: UK employees prefer cash as Christmas bonus.