How To Prevent Holiday Accidents

Created at 16:16 on Tue 24th Apr 2007

Submitted 10th May 2006 by Sam Edden

The holidays are the worst season for accidents. Ironically, office Christmas parties are one of the biggest causes of accidents, in the sense that they push drunk people into cars and onto the streets. Therefore, it helps the business if it takes basic precautions to stop wannabe accidents from leaving the building.

It seems that no one can top people from drinking at Christmas parties, and it only creates a nasty situation when you suggest that they drink less. You can limit the number of drinks, but people somehow manage to drink more. You can unofficially discourage drinking, but it’s jut better to find other ways to deal with it.

The most basic way is to offer some sort of incentive to designated drivers, those that are willing drink sodas, water and fruit juice, and then drive drunks home after the party. These incentives can take the form of gift cards or actual gifts, but remember that they took on the extra responsibility when it comes time for promotions. These are definitely people that you want to encourage, so make it a point to find a way.

Another idea is to allow them to stay where they drop. It’s not the most orderly of things to do, but if you have a large building, then designate a room or two as sleeping rooms, and encourage people to bring sleeping bags an bedrolls if they plan on getting drunk. Point out that it’s not a hotel, but that it’s there for anyone who needs it. If nothing else, it will discourage people from driving home drunk, which is what you are trying to discourage in the first place. If you decide to hold the party at a home, the same can be accomplished by designating a common room.

A variation of the above is to hold it at someone’s house or a hotel, where rooms are easily available. Besides having someone else clean up the mess, this makes you feel better because you know that an option is available, and the hotel may offer a group rate discount. It also encourages the hotel to reserve the space for you again next year. (Bear in mind that most hotels have a dry spell around the holidays, unless they are in tourist hotspots.)

There are basic ways to stop drinking, by the way. The most basic of these is to allow just one drink; just don’t toast too often. You can also use some sort of stamp or token system, but be aware that stamps can be washed off and that tokens be traded. There are other ways, but they depend on personal honor, which seems to evaporate like cheap beer around alcohol.

As the idea is to keep your employees safe; if something happens to them, then you have to pay for training their replacement, and your insurance carrier needs to take care of their bills. By taking care of your workers, you save money. That, and you show that you honestly like them. Which is always worth it in the end.