Moving Beyond Mandatory Fun When Planning Company Events

Picture a middle school dance.

The gym has been decorated by people who tried hard. There is music, punch, and two long walls of children pressed against them, arms folded, waiting for literally anyone else to move first. The chaperones stand near the door, checking their watches. Nobody dances for forty-five minutes. Then two kids finally move, and suddenly it is a party, and everyone spends the rest of the night wondering why they wasted the first hour.

I have been to corporate holiday parties that were, structurally, exactly this. Grown adults with expense accounts, standing along the walls of a nice room, holding drinks, and waiting. The chaperones have better clothes now, and the punch has improved, but the physics have not changed at all.

The Uncomfortable Diagnosis

Here is where I think my sociology degree is finally paying rent. A company party asks people to perform a relationship that does not exist. You spend all year in a structure with defined roles, defined hierarchies, and defined scripts. Then, for three hours, you are told that the structure is suspended and you should relax, in a room that still contains your boss, in clothes you had to think about, with no task to do and no script to follow.

Of course people stand against the wall. The wall is the only thing in the room that makes sense. More enthusiasm from the podium will not fix this. What fixes it is giving people a structure designed for the evening, rather than the org chart.

Give People Purpose Even at a Party

This is the most impactful change you can make, and it is embarrassingly simple. The first twenty minutes of any company event are the whole evening’s mood. They go poorly because a person walks in unsure of what to do, receives nothing, and must immediately decide who to approach with empty hands and no reason to engage.

So put something in their hand within thirty seconds. Have passed food circulating the moment doors open, rather than holding it for a buffet at eight. Make sure a drink is within arm’s reach of the entrance. Ideally, provide an activity that gives people a legitimate excuse to stand next to a stranger — a station where something is being made, a photo setup, live music people can face together, or a friendly dog if the venue allows it.

Anything that lets two people from different departments stand shoulder to shoulder looking at the same third thing is a win. That is how adults start conversations.

Timing Is an Inclusion Decision

The most consequential thing on your planning document is the date and the hour, and it is usually chosen by whoever has the least complicated life. A Saturday evening in December costs your team a weekend, requires a sitter, excludes anyone with a second job, and lands hardest on the people with the least flexibility. A Thursday from three to six costs the company a few hours of productivity and costs your team almost nothing.

I would take the Thursday every time, and I say that as someone who used to schedule the Saturday because it felt more special. It did feel more special. It was also, I now understand, a decision I got to make comfortably because of who I happened to be.

Look at your date from four seats: the single parent, the person who commutes forty minutes, the hourly employee whose hours are getting cut that week anyway, and the person who does not drink. If it works from all four, you have a good date.

Voluntary Has to Actually Be Voluntary

Say it in writing. Then find out whether your managers are treating it that way, because the memo means nothing next to a director asking, “you’re coming, right?” in a hallway.

And then let people leave. A hard end time, announced in advance and honored, is a kindness. The people who want to keep going will find somewhere else to go, which is fine. The person who does not show up is giving you information, not an insult. Sometimes that information is that they have a newborn. Sometimes it is that they do not feel like they belong, and that is worth knowing.

The Seating Problem

If there is a seated meal, think carefully about whether you want to assign seats. People will be more comfortable if you let them sit with those they know, but they won’t get to meet anyone new. If you want more intermingling between teams, assign seats and mix the tables with a couple of folks from each team, so everyone knows at least one person at their table. That gives them some comfort while nudging them to meet someone new.

I recommend skipping the head table. A head table is just a visual diagram of the hierarchy you claimed to suspend. Still, think through where you seat leadership so they don’t cause discomfort just by sitting there. I’ve seen a table go quiet once a CEO sat down — not because the CEO wasn’t pleasant, but simply because they were the CEO and the rest of the table didn’t know them well enough to make small talk.

The Small Things That Matter

Some of these are covered in more detail elsewhere in this series. All of them are decided in advance, or not at all.

• Food that everyone can eat, collected privately on a form, with the accommodation being a real dish rather than a subtraction.
• Non-alcoholic drinks that a bartender actually made, in the same glass, at the same price of free.
• A plus-one policy decided clearly and stated early, since ambiguity is worse than either answer.
• A program that respects people’s time.
• Accessibility handled without anyone having to ask twice.

None of this is expensive. All of it is noticed, and mostly by the people who are used to not being thought of.

The Program, Kept Short

Twenty minutes, total. Five minutes per speaker, maximum, enforced by an actual person with an actual signal. I have never heard an employee say the party would have been better with a longer speech. I have heard the opposite approximately four hundred times, and since I was the one giving the speeches for several years, I have earned the right to say it.

Say thank you, be specific about what people accomplished, name a few individuals if you are going to name anyone, and sit down. Specific gratitude from a leader who then stops talking is worth more than any amount of catering.

What You Are Actually Building

Maya Angelou’s line is in all the training at my restaurant: people will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.

A company party is one of the few times a year your whole organization gets a read on that. Not from the budget, which nobody sees, but from whether the vegan got a real dinner, whether the person who does not drink was handed something good, and whether it ended when you said it would. Design those four hours the way you would design anything else you cared about.