We all love parties. We especially love office parties; why not come to work and instead of working, you spend your day eating, drinking and chatting with your colleagues? Now, as an executive assistant, one of your tasks might be to organize an office party, and if you ever get that task, it would be an amazing idea to know everything you need beforehand. Remember that your office party cannot flop, so either write down these tips or bookmark this article as you might need it.
The two options
There are two major options as far as office parties are concerned. The first one is to organize it during the working hours, which means that all of you practically have a day off. The latter option would be to opt for a night party on a Friday or a Saturday. Bear in mind that people don’t actually like coming to the office outside the workhours, so if you opt for the latter, you will probably have to find a different venue to host your party. If you go with your first option, then the party might be thrown in the office during the working hours, where everyone will be quite positive and entertained (who doesn’t like a day off?). There are also great ways to have a fun and alternative office party, if this is something that rocks your boat.
The essentials
Obviously, the first thing you need to worry about are the essentials –food and drink. If you’re organizing the office party on your premises, then you might want to start the day with some amazing breakfast. The best option would be to opt for healthy catering ideas as it’s always good to encourage the workers to eat healthy food. As far as the drinks are concerned, you might want to start with coffee and juices, but you should have alcoholic drinks there for the second half of the party. A quick disclaimer: you can also organize your party during the last 4 working hours of the day, but that doesn’t change your organization; you should also include catering and drinks.
Limit alcoholic drinks
Speaking of alcoholic drinks, it’s very important to know that even though this is a party, it’s an office party, and there’s no need to get extremely drunk. People drink very freely when they have the chance, so you might want to limit the alcohol. One way to do this is to create drink tickets, and limit each employee to three or four drinks (or how much you think is enough). You can find many printable drink tickets online, so you will save time on asking the graphic designer to come up with an idea.
Ask for help
Even though you are the executive assistant or simply in charge of the office party, it doesn’t mean that you have to do everything by yourself. Create a party committee that you will represent and allocate the tasks to the members. Not only is it going to be way faster, but it’s also a great managerial tactic. Everyone will be in charge of a certain thing that they will see it’s done. This is a great idea for many other reasons as well. First of all, all of the members of the party committee will have enough time to do their own jobs, and secondly, sometimes it’s very good to listen to other people’s ideas. Finally, it can also help you lower stress caused by all the party planning.
Think of the place
If you opt for throwing your office party someplace else, then obviously, you need to invest some time into finding the right venue. Many venues cannot be booked during weekends, so it’s good to have that in mind. If you want for your office party to be very memorable, you might want to think of unique locations, such as museums, golf courses, bowling alleys and such. You need a place that can easily accommodate your whole company, and also a place where you can drink, eat and dance. Stay away from huge venues as they might look empty, which can be quite awkward.
Carefully choose the activities
Apart from drinking, eating and dancing, make sure to have all the activities listed out. This could be a very interesting thing to do, as you can kill two birds with one stone and throw an office party and a teambuilding exercise at the same time. There are many different games that you could play during your party, or you can set various “stages” where people could spend time. You can have the dance floor, a table with board games or poker, a bowling alley or a place where a group of people can play darts, the buffet… The options are endless, and you only need a bit of creativity and thinking outside of the box.
Planning your office party might sound dull, and it can definitely be nerve-wracking at times, but it can be quite an interesting and fun thing to do. If you ask several of your colleagues to help you out, this task is not impossible. Remember that the success of your office party depends on the time you spend organizing it, so start promptly. Finally, good luck and have a great time!
