It's that time of year again! Your organization is just about to hold its annual holiday party.

Planning and hosting a holiday party and similar work-related social events is a great way to team-build and improve workplace morale. There are, however, some challenges with which you must grapple in order to keep everyone happy and safe, avoid legal liability and, most importantly, be successful.

In this bulletin, we provide you with a non-exhaustive list of tips to be kept in mind when planning and hosting your holiday party this year.

1. Don't Leave Anyone Out!

  • Ensure that employees are not excluded from the event on the basis of religious belief
  • Consider non-denominational holiday activities
  • Emphasize to your employees that participation in any holiday activity is entirely voluntary and non-participation will not be noted or recorded

2. To Serve or Not to Serve?

  • Restrict the amount of alcohol consumed by each employee and his or her guest by using a drink voucher system or hiring a bartender rather than offering a selfserve bar
  • Close the bar approximately one hour before the scheduled end of the party
  • Provide non-alcoholic refreshments as well as alcohol
  • Ensure that food is served along with alcohol
  • Assign a supervisor or manager to monitor alcohol consumption and give him or her the power to limit the service of alcohol
  • Ensure that you have host liability insurance

3. Host the Event at a Hotel or Restaurant

  • Ensure that the hotel or restaurant at which you host the event has a licensed commercial host responsible for providing qualified staff to serve alcohol and monitor consumption
  • Make sure the commercial host has its own liability insurance
  • Hosting an event at a hotel or restaurant does not eliminate your organization's duty of care toward its employees, but will ensure that there is some degree of control over the amount of alcohol consumed

4. Get Everyone Home Safely

  • Encourage employees who plan on drinking to leave their car at home
  • Remind employees that drinking and driving is viewed very seriously by the organization
  • Encourage employees to take public transportation or make advance arrangements for a ride home
  • Provide taxi vouchers to employees and their guests to ensure their safe trip home (consider perhaps providing a couple of taxi vouchers as employees and their guests may attend another venue where they continue drinking before heading home)
  • Make arrangements with a hotel to provide discounted rates to employees who choose to stay downtown rather than go home

5. Be Aware of Employee Behaviour

  • Any misconduct that occurs at the holiday party is likely to have the same legal ramifications as a similar incident of misconduct that occurs at the workplace or during regular working hours
  • Employers have a duty to consider and investigate any complaint or incident of alleged harassment that occurs at a work-related social event
  • Intervene if you become aware of any inappropriate or improper employee Behaviour

6. Safety First!

  • Take all reasonable measures to ensure the safety of employees attending the holiday party
  • Injuries that occur at a work-related social event could well be compensable by your organization

Best of luck in planning and hosting your holiday party this year. If there is any employment, labour or workplace human rights issue with which we can assist you, please feel free to contact us. Contact information for all of our lawyers is available through our firm's website.

We wish you the very best this holiday season!

The content of this article is intended to provide a general guide to the subject matter. Specialist advice should be sought about your specific circumstances.