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7 Tips to Mitigate the Risks of Summer Staff Parties

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With millions of employees continuing to work remotely part- or full-time, 2022 summer office outings may represent one of the first “all hands” get-togethers for many employers since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Indeed, 37% of respondents to spot surveys conducted by Seyfarth at Work reported that there had not been a need, opportunity and/or COVID-safe venue for everyone to be in the same space at the same time since 2019.

Two years is a long wait, and based on anecdotal reporting in the wake of June and early July events, some employees are perhaps a bit overexcited at the prospect of finally hanging out together.

Some summer outing horror stories that resulted in complaints and charges include:

• An East Coast video game development company’s festivities included ice-breaker activities of beer pong and “spin the vodka bottle,” with managers nudging uncomfortable staff to join in.
Result: two employees contacted a local enforcement agency looking to file a harassment charge.

• A West Coast tech startup’s party featured an impromptu game of “pin the tail on the interns,” involving strips of paper “tails” and tape.
Result: two interns left the organizations and several employees threatened suit.

• A Midwest pack-and-ship firm had insult rap battles that devolved into comments about aging and weight gain.
Result: a spate of internal complaints from employees, and even from a caterer who was setting up food on-site and overheard the derisive and potentially discriminatory lyrics.

Actionable Risk Management Take-Aways for Bosses:

A number of pre-event precautions can help reduce the risk of your summer outing going sideways:

• Scare your managers—just a little. Schedule pre-event “Respect Huddles” where you can remind those in supervisory roles that they all have potential professional and/or legal responsibility if things go wrong. Deputize them, so to speak, to watch out for risky conduct as the festivities unfold. Share simple scripts and responses your managers can use to “nudge” attendees back to a zone of respect.

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• Set limits for everyone on things like alcohol, how long/late the event runs, and an agenda of (appropriately) fun activities. Historically, drinking can be a gateway activity to all sorts of sordid interactions. To manage the risk, some organizations have found it very helpful to “ticket the tequilas,” meaning they provide the event food, but limit the alcohol, such as by using a drink ticket system.
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A strict event agenda helps prevent attendees from straying into murky territory with creative comments and conduct. Any planned games should focus on friendly collaboration, not physical contact.

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Assign a trusted internal party planner to carefully manage your party or outing agenda.

• Strongly encourage staff to bring significant others and kids, if interested. Having lots of little tykes in attendance tends to reduce all sorts of adult excesses and judgement errors. However, also be open to employee opt-outs. Stress the fact that no one is expected to attend—it is just as important as making sure everyone feels welcome.

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• Send a pre-event conduct memo to every employee at least once, and maybe even twice. Revisit your office respect rules, as they extend to and apply in the great outdoors as well, at least when your organization is sponsoring.

Tips for Everyone

For employees at any level, we recommend not thinking of the outing as party time, but rather as a professional event that just happens to be moving outside. These tips can help any attendee enjoy the gathering while avoiding risky situations:

• Set lower expectations for yourself on how “off-the-hook” the whole outing will be, which can help ensure that you’re not disappointed and are better able to maintain decorum.

• Stay away from casual banter that is ribald, risqué or involves sharing too much information.

• Social distance, for both COVID and conduct reasons.

Converting a Conference to 100% Virtual in One Week

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Conference organizers have been among the hardest hit by COVID-19. When your entire business is predicated on bringing people together, pivoting is not easy.

On March 12, 2020, the InsurTech NY team saw a dark future ahead. Officials had confirmed 500 people in the United States tested positive for the coronavirus, President Donald Trump had just announced restrictions on flights to and from Europe, and we were one week away from hosting the 2020 InsurTech NY Spring Conference, our annual New York City-based in-person event. We had planned to host seven panels, 20 startup competition pitches, and four TED-style talks, totaling more than 60 speakers. As part of the competition, more than 20 judges had to vote on winners in near real-time. We also promised to provide networking opportunities with one-on-one meetings for all attendees.

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For the health and safety of our guests we knew we could not continue this event in-person. Fortunately, we had experience running webinars and virtual communities and activated a preparedness plan that we created when coronavirus was still mainly in China.

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However, we knew pivoting to an all-virtual event would be a monumental challenge.

Immediately we went into action. Within 12 hours, we called every speaker and sponsor about the new format. All speakers stuck with us. We went on to draft communication to notify all attendees. We also created a full web page detailing our experience. For others who may need to shift their in-person events to virtual ones, here’s a brief roadmap with key steps that we took and may help you too:

Convert existing staff to new virtual roles. Current staff and volunteers need to be immediately converted and trained on new virtual roles. To be effective, you need people dedicated to wearing new hats and carrying out last-minute responsibilities. This may include working during after hours and weekends. Some of these roles were already defined, but others needed to be redefined. They include:

  • Speaker liaisons: Assign at least two people to ensure speakers join their sessions on time and their A/V works.
  • Stage manager: This person keeps track of time and communicates verbally to speakers to cue them.
  • Presentation controller: A dedicated person to share and run the slides for presentations.
  • Master of ceremonies (MC): A dedicated host to introduce speakers and lead transitions.
  • Help desk: At least two people with technical expertise to respond to any tech or access issues.

Over-communicate to everyone. Send “how-to” information constantly, specifically about accessing the conference itself. If possible, use multiple channels, including text and social. Even then, you may have some people who have difficulty accessing the sessions.

Organize dry runs of the entire event with your staff. This process will help you identify issues you may not have considered. Fix the issues and do another dry run. We only had time for one dry run, but could have benefitted substantially from a second.

Revamp the event to make it more entertaining.

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Attendees have other options during a virtual conference, so it is particularly essential to keep them engaged and entertained throughout the day. Some tips include:

  • Run polls and questions between sessions
  • Keep each session short and sweet
  • Create content during the breaks so they don’t “turn the dial.” We hired a professional comedian, but you can be creative on how to fill the time.

In retrospect, the event was successful for four reasons: (1) intense planning and preparation during the seven-day transition, (2) support from our speakers and sponsors to stay with us in the transition, (3) effective communication internally and externally to all stakeholders, and (4) a great team and set of volunteers that worked tirelessly to make it happen. A full guide is available with more details about how to make the transition at InsurTech NY.