I read a very interesting article recently about open plan offices.  The theme of the article was more to do with end of year staff parties, but it detailed how around the world these parties are not what they once were and many companies are doing away with them. The article explained that the end of the year party started at a time when most people worked in big firms, in their own office, and there was very little interaction and that was the purpose of the end of year party or the monthly get together at a bar in the firm.  

It was to encourage interaction, people to see who they are working with and get to know each other.  The article said that around the world there is a trend towards open plan offices where a lot of people now work in the same office and generally know each other much better than they did when they worked in small closeted spaces.  They see each other every day, they greet each other, they meet at lunch, they share lift clubs on the way home, etc and there is not the same interest anymore in end of year parties as there used to be.  I wonder what your thoughts on that are – I only know the complications of arranging them. Whatever date you arrange, whether it is one or two years in advance, there are people who cannot go.  If you arrange a club there are certain people who will not go to a club or a bar, if you don’t arrange a club or a bar and you arrange a picnic at a restaurant, there are those who will find that too boring and will not go to that.  There are those who want to take their partners, there are those who want their partners to be paid for and there are those who are possibly too embarrassed to take their partners and don’t want their partners to attend.  That was an easier one to settle because research quickly indicated that most firms do not allow partners and where they do, they pay their own way.  I find when you ask somebody to pay their own way or even contribute towards the function that is the best way to get them to lose interest in it!  I suppose it is inevitable in a country where we have 13 official languages that there is so much diversity and so many different people that it would be very hard to genuinely find one activity that everybody can be moderately happy with to do.  I think quite frankly, even if the company pays for it, if you were to for example arrange it for a Saturday and the staff members are now going to the party out of their own free time, you will find that only a few would turn up – probably your best staff actually.  That would probably be the best way of testing whether there is actually an interest, because if you are not interested enough to turn up in your own free time for a function to get to know fellow staff “better”, then one can hardly say it is something that is important to one.  If I think back, probably the most successful staff function I ever had, apart from some staff leaving early and taking some of the food and drinks with them, was a function that we had at the horseracing and when I was begged by everybody to repeat it, I did.  Of course, a number of those invited, including those who said it was such a good idea and would love to come, immediately came back with the “I really did want to come but unfortunately I cannot this time, but next time for sure.”