10 December 2007
“Tis the season to be jolly, tra la la la la, la la la la”! Although the majority of workplaces are still getting into the Christmas spirit, a growing number of employers are banning the traditional festivities and, as our trip down memory lane reveals, some bosses can actually turn out to be a real “bah humbug”!
Food for thought
In 2004, a worker at Buckingham Palace was sacked just a week before Christmas after officials of the royal household learnt that the member of staff had tried to sell a surplus Christmas present from the Queen on eBay. The Queen’s traditional gift of a Christmas pudding was auctioned on the site for £20, which was apparently “a security breach”.
At the beginning of 2007, three nurses from Mayday Hospital in Croydon faced the sack after they were caught on CCTV eating a chocolate cake belonging to staff in another ward. The cake had been donated to staff of the Accident and Emergency Department for all their efforts over the Christmas period and hospital bosses accused the other nurses of theft.
A time to be merry
In 2005, the Chartered Management Institute’s annual ‘Christmas Outlook’ survey revealed that 32% of the employers, who were hosting a Christmas party, were also expecting their employees to bear the full cost for attending.
This year the percentage of employers who are not willing to contribute has risen to 39%. There has also been a 20% decline over the last five years in the number of employers who hold an office celebration. Currently, two out of three employers put on a traditional bash!
Tinsel and trees
Last year, a survey of 2300 workplaces carried out by Peninsula showed that 74% of employers had banned Christmas decorations from the office for fear of offending non-Christian employees. This was 3% more than the previous year. The survey caused a public outcry, with many politicians branding it as politically correct nonsense.
This year the Health and Safety Executive has been keen to dispel the other excuse often used by employers; the myth that staff cannot put up decorations on health and safety grounds. The HSE website confirms “Most organisations including HSE and local councils manage to put up their decorations, celebrating the spirit of Christmas, without a fuss. They just sensibly provide their staff with suitable step ladders to put up decorations rather than expecting staff to balance on wheelie chairs.”
Santa’s sack?
In 1999 a Santa caused a commotion in Bromley, after he was sacked for complaining that his grotto was too hot. His two elves, who were also sent packing on the grounds that they had arrived minutes late for work, picketed the grotto with a placard saying “"Save our Santa. We've been given the elfbow" and accused the organisers of running “a sweatshop not a workshop”.
Almost ten years later and Santa’s lot doesn’t get much better. This year Santa has come aground in Australia and has been given the sack for saying “Ho, ho Ho!” It has emerged that the traditional greeting is offensive to women as a slang term for the word whore. Nowadays, a politically correct Santa would naturally say “Ha, ha, ha!”
In 2004, the TUC identified the following top ten practices of the scrooge employer in the 21st century:
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Making staff work on Christmas bank holidays or lose pay
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Counting Christmas bank holidays as part of annual leave
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Keeping the office freezing to save on heating costs
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Dictating Christmas leave arrangements at short notice
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Banning workplace relationships that start at the Christmas party
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Not allowing parents flexitime to see their kids’ nativity play
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Not allowing Christmas decorations at work
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Not paying the minimum wage for temporary Christmas jobs
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Making people work late over Christmas
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Cancelling Christmas parties on safety or compensation grounds
There may well be commercial reasons behind all these decisions to abandon the spirit of Christmas but employers would do well to bear in the mind the knock on effect in the New Year when de-motivated employees follow another tradition and make a resolution to find a new job!
The season of good will doesn’t have to be expensive and, although only one in ten employees will expect to receive a Christmas bonus this year, it costs nothing to say thank you, which, taken in true Christmas spirit, should be appreciated by all.
On that note, Clarkslegal would like to thank our Buddy subscribers, registered members and guests for their support this year and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.