Study Finds Many Not Workers Not Interested in Employer Holiday Parties

Posted on December 18, 2007

A Spherion Workplace Snapshot survey conducted by Harris Interactive has found that 72 percent of adult workers age 50+ say it is not important to them that their employer has an annual holiday party. 56 percent of workers age 18 to 29 find holiday parties unimportant. 62 percent of workers overall don't care if there is an employer-run party or not. The survey also finds that employers are holiding less annual holiday parties. Emploers holding an annual holiday party dropped from from 58 percent in 2006 to 55 percent in 2007.

That being said, when it comes to those who attend, 23 percent of workers admit to feeling obligated to do so and women are more likely to feel this way than men (25 percent vs. 21 percent). In addition, 88 percent say they have never embarrassed themselves at an employer's annual holiday party, with a mere five percent admitting to having done so. Workers earning less than $15,000 annually are significantly more likely to have embarrassed themselves at a holiday party than any other income group, with 20 percent stating that they have done this.

Here are some highlights from the Spherion survey.

A large number of adult workers feel neutral about holiday party issues.

More than one quarter (29 percent) of adult workers feel neutral about their obligation to attend their employer's annual holiday party.

Nearly one quarter (24 percent) of adult workers gave a neutral response when asked about how important it is to them that their employers holding holiday parties

Female workers and higher salaried employees feel more obligated than male workers to attend annual holiday party.

One-quarter (25%) of female workers say they feel obligated to attend their employer's annual holiday party, compared to only 21 percent of male workers.

Workers earning more than $75,000 annually are the most likely income group to feel obligated to attend their employer's holiday party, with 27 percent stating reporting this.

Workers earning less than $15,000 are most likely to have embarrassed themselves at an employer's annual holiday party.

Twenty percent of workers earning $15,000 or less say they have embarrassed themselves at their employer's annual holiday party. This is more than any other income group.