1 in 10 People Are Fired or Disciplined After an Office Christmas Party

By December 10, 2018For Companies, For Talent

It’s finally that time of the year, office Christmas party season.

It’s the one night of the year when colleagues down tools, drink too many Jaeger bombs, dance without shame and sing along to ”All I want for Christmas” at the top of their lungs.

These annual nights out are a great way to let your hair down and bond with your colleagues. Plus, they’re usually a lot of fun…if you behave yourself that is.

A worrying new statistic has claimed that one in ten Britons is dis­ci­plined, or, in some cases, fired from their jobs after a big Christmas night out. Talk about a hangover!

The research was carried out by Af­ter­Drink.com. They polled 2,194 peo­ple who all claimed to have at­tended at least one Christ­mas party.

The study found that office jaunts usually cause a lot of chaos.

A whop­ping 89% of peo­ple said they’d drunk at a Christ­mas do. 65% said they’d drunk too much booze at a work Christ­mas do, with a ma­jor­ity say­ing over-drink­ing had im­pacted their be­hav­iour neg­a­tively. No surprise there. 

However, 9% of the re­spon­dents said their ac­tions at a Christ­mas party had led to their dis­missal or dis­ci­pli­nary ac­tion. When asked what this was in re­sponse to, 23% said it was be­cause they’d said some­thing in­ap­pro­pri­ate, and 21% said it was be­cause they’d got into a ver­bal or phys­i­cal fight with a col­league or boss. 16% said they’d been caught do­ing drugs, 14% said it was be­cause they’d been caught hav­ing sex with a col­league. A fur­ther 11% said they’d been told off/ sacked for in­ap­pro­pri­ate be­hav­iour such as nu­dity or lewd com­ments.

As for par­tic­i­pants who asked to leave work shortly fol­low­ing the Christ­mas party, 8% had, with 29% putting this down to hav­ing kissed or had sex with a col­league who they could­n’t face work­ing with any­more.

Bet you don’t feel so bad about your questionable dance moves now, eh? If you have your Christmas party this week do yourself a favour and take it easy. You might need your job in January.

Find a new job for 2019 online now.

Author Alice Murray

Alice Murray is a Content Creator at Jobbio with a passion for Employer Branding and Graduate Culture. She's a keen traveller and a self-proclaimed lazy runner.

More posts by Alice Murray

Leave a Reply