There to do seem to be many reasons out there why you shouldnt even think about having a New Years party in the office and I can say that some of this is down to personal experience and the rest is just well known.

Reasons why you should rethink where you have the party?

Drink

Drink is certainly not something that you should mix in the office. There is nothing wrong with having just a few drinks with the office employees but I wouldnt say that you should go too far. Now that I think about it, I would really suggest having a few drinks with workers over the holiday season because it just makes things more laid back.

Insurance

It had to be mentioned I’m afraid and although the insurance will cover many things that may be damaged from drink, fights and other things I am sure that not all office insurance policies will be happy to fork out hundreds and possibly thousands of pounds because the employees have been careless.

On top of this I will also say that a lot of small business insurance will not even cover you if you spill certain drinks like beer and wine over computers because those types of drinks are not generally acceptable in the work environment.

Personal Experience

We actually had part of our Christmas celebrations here in the office this year and luckily nothing got broken but I will say that if we had left the pub trip any later things would have kicked off. There were drinks coming around from all over the place and I do not think that the bowling alley beers we had previously helped us at all.

However I will say once again that there is nothing wrong with having a few in office games like pool, gaming or of course poker. When you think about it, the only time in which the problems seem to occur is when people take things too far.

Other Options?

There are so many options out there in which you can take the office party. You could offer to pay for a nice meal as I am sure that no-one would refuse free food, then perhaps go out fora bit of a dance afterwards. It is only at venues like this where you get to see the people for who they are, the boss could turn out to be a really laid back person. I wouldn’t say that they should use this information against you in the office but to help you push forward in the company.