4 tips to organise a successful office Christmas party
It’s that time of the year again when most people have their sights set on the Christmas break, a time to completely chill out and relax before coming back to work in January refreshed and ready for a new year.
There’s just one thing standing between you and the relaxation of a Christmas break. Organising the office Christmas party. The 3 words “office” “Christmas” and “party” when used in unison are enough to strike fear into even the most confident of planners.
So how can you make sure that your work’s Christmas party is a success?
Set a budget before you start planning anything
The first thing you need to do is set a budget for the event, there is no point researching big glamorous Christmas party options if you have a budget of £15pp. You’ll need to sit down with whoever is putting their hands in their pockets and find out how much can be spent. It’s a good idea to get an overall figure and then have a breakdown of estimates for food and drink, activities and anything else.
Send ‘save the dates’ as soon as possible
At the same level of importance as the budget, you need to decide on a date, if no one can attend then there is no point in you going through the agonising process of organising a party. Depending on the size of your company you can send around a selection of dates and hold a poll to see the most desirable dates. Generally Thursdays and Fridays are the best days of the week. Once a favoured date has been picked, send out save the dates as soon as possible and add to your company calendar to ensure maximum attendance.
Give choice
People like to have a say in how they spend their time outside of work. Collate all the ideas you have into one list and gradually go through removing any that on further thought may seem unfeasible. Finally once you have between 3-5 final ideas left, you can put together a poll or questionnaire to see which activities are most favoured. Remember it’s impossible to please everyone but it is better to have a happy majority.
Gather feedback
Although after the event you’ll probably just want to take a long deep breath..(or a strong drink) it is important to gather feedback from the team. Although you’ll likely have a gauge on whether it was on overall success – or in some cases failure, it’s good to get feedback and opinions from other attendees as there may have been details that you didn’t notice. All this valuable feedback can then be collated and saved to digest before organising the next Christmas party.
Following these top tips should help you to organise a successful and fun office Christmas party!
