Tips to Avoid Holiday Party Pitfalls
The annual Holiday party can be career enhancing or career damaging. Getting together with co-workers, management and their significant others can be a wonderful way to relax and strengthen social bonds or it can be a way to alienate people who are vital to your employment and your career path. Mixing alcohol with employment can be a perilous cocktail especially for those individuals who may struggle with alcohol use or abuse.
Alcoholism is a disability under Human Rights legislation. As such, an employer must make efforts to accommodate an employee's alcoholism. However, accommodation is only necessary if the employer knows of the alcoholism. The following Human Rights decision illustrates both the perils of mixing alcohol and employment and the employer's responsibility to the employee.
After five years of employment, the employee attended the annual holiday party where he became intoxicated. His description of the events follow:
"I went to the company Christmas party. I ended up getting intoxicated there. I was bought drinks there by members of management. I was harassing my supervisors and other members of management upon being intoxicated. The Monday following the Christmas party I was called into the hr office at the end of the day and terminated based on my actions at the Christmas party... I don’t recall all the events that allegedly took place as I blacked out toward the end of the party…"
According to others at the party, the employee was making physical threats and sexually inappropriate comments to co-workers, management and their spouses.
The employee asserted that he should not have been terminated because he was an alcoholic and management knew, or should have known, that providing him with alcohol would cause inappropriate behaviour. Management admitted that they knew that the employee "drank and partied hard" but claimed that they did not know that he had a problem with alcohol.
Unfortunately for the employee, he lacked clear evidence that the employer knew of his alcoholism. The employee had requested that his medical benefits cover the expense of a drug to deal with addiction but had failed to clarify that the addiction in question was alcoholism. His employer assumed that the medication was to be used to treat addiction to nicotine. Because the employer did not know of the disability, there was no need to accommodate it. The termination was lawful.
The Lesson for Employees: At the end of the day, you are the one responsible for your actions whether disabled by alcoholism or not. You are the one who will bear the consequence of excessive consumption. If you cannot control, or have difficulty controlling, your consumption, the following tips may be useful:
Do not attend the party or leave early
Monitor, and limit, your consumption
Advise your employer about your disability and request that your employer assist you in limiting your consumption
Avoid talking about private issues and avoid gossiping
Avoid aggressive, belligerent or overly-friendly behaviour
Immediately report any inappropriate behaviour or comments to management
Lessons for Employers:
Do not have an open bar
Ensure alternate drinks, such as soft drinks or water, are available
Discourage management and supervisors from drinking excessively to provide a professional example
Prior to the party, remind employees that the party is a workplace situation and policies regarding harassment and respect remain in effect
Provide taxi chits
With a little advance preparation the holiday party can be memorable for the right reasons. Enjoy yourself and party wisely.
Huffman v Mitchell Plastics, 2011 HRTO 1745, https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onhrt/doc/2011/2011hrto1745/2011hrto1745.pdf
The content and the opinions expressed here is informational purposes only and does not constitute legal or professional advice. Nor does reading or commenting on it create a lawyer/client relationship with the author. I encourage you to contact me directly at adrianlawoffice@gmail.com if you have specific legal questions or concerns.
The author encourages you to share this article on social media.
Follow me on Twitter @gwendolynadrian