So employers often ask are they liable for the behaviour of their staff at the Christmas party and this is a question which has been dealt with in a couple of tribunal cases over the past year, and the answer is possibly, but it’s unlikely. What you need to be thinking about is what kind of a culture are you promoting at the Christmas party? We want to be sensible whilst allowing our employees to let their hair down at the end of the year, and it’s a really good chance for an employer to say thank you to the staff for all their hard work during the year, but you want to make sure that the focus of the event is not on alcohol. It’s fine to have wine and beer available and to put money behind the bar. What we’re looking for though is not senior members of staff forcing their employees to do shots or encouraging people to get overly drunk. If an employee is unfortunately the victim of unwanted behaviour at the Christmas party and that an employee can prove that the atmosphere of drunkenness and rowdy behaviour was condoned or fostered by the employer, then that might lead to a situation where the employer is found liable along with the employee who carried out the unwanted behaviour. So really my message would be allow your employees to have fun at the Christmas party but don’t foster an atmosphere in which drinking to excess and rowdy behaviour is encouraged, and then I would imagine that you will have no issues.
