Frolicking with the law can be a dangerous party trick
Festive days again… and with it, the usual round of drink-laden lunches stretching just another half hour into the afternoon, not to mention the dreaded office party. Surely, normal rules don’t apply at this time of year - only Scrooge would mind if you were slumped at your desk clutching the alka seltzer the morning after?
Generally, what you do out of work is not your boss’s business, but where office parties (let alone long lunches) are concerned, you do need to be just a bit careful.
The legal line is that off-duty ‘misconduct’ can be your employer’s business if a clear link is drawn between the business interests of the company, and the misconduct in question. It’s unlikely to be much of an issue if you’re out with your friends on a Saturday night – but at an office party, a tribunal may well take a different view of things like drunkenness, harassment or fighting.
It doesn’t matter whether the offending behaviour takes place on company premises or not – as long as it’s a function for which the employer is responsible. So, to save embarrassment (and worse) here is some essential info:
Keep it clean
Illegal activities could become a problem. In one case, a manager was found to have been fairly dismissed when she took drugs at a party, even though lots of other employees were doing the same. The tribunal felt that quite apart from the illegality of her behaviour, she had damaged her credibility as a manager amongst her junior colleagues. Companies are likely to have an idea of what's appropriate and what's not.
No one would expect you to remain stone cold sober at an office party (especially when your employer is paying) and it is pretty unlikely that your boss will take any action against you if you’re just making the most of the company’s hospitality. But if clients were present, your company may be able to argue that it’s lawful for them to discipline (or even dismiss) you because their genuine business interests were threatened by your behaviour.
Tribunals do accept that office parties aren’t exactly church meetings, but they will take a pretty stern view if clients or colleagues are shown to be offended by an employee’s behaviour. There are a depressing number of tribunal cases in which dismissals for drunken behaviour at office parties have all been shown to be justified.
Violence counts too. Employers are entitled to regard assaults on colleagues (even outside working hours) as very serious misconduct. Even if you’re provoked, always try to stay calm and bring someone more senior in to mediate – don’t take it into your own hands.
If any problems do crop up, you should expect your employer to hold a proper disciplinary meeting to deal with any issues over your conduct, as failure to do so is likely to be held by a tribunal to be unfair. But office parties can bring even more sinister problems.
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