Festive Cost to Irish Businesses Revealed
Time and money spent on Christmas parties, personal presents and colleagues’ Secret Santa gifts whilst at work is costing Irish office-based businesses a cool €491 million, according to new research. The “bah humbug” study from leading online job board CV-Library found that organised festive fun, a.k.a. the Office Christmas Party, takes up 62 minutes of the working day per person. It also found that employees spend roughly 85 minutes over the Yuletide period researching and buying personal presents and Secret Santa gifts whilst at work.
Bosses surveyed indicated that employees lucky enough to receive an annual winter bonus will be awarded an average of €596.65, considering companies of all sizes. Managers budgeting for the Christmas party are also said to put aside approximately €21.61 per head.
Whilst only an hour taken out for the party may not look like much, when adding up the time and money spent on all festive activities for full-time Irish workers, this is costing Irish businesses €491 million.
However, the vast majority of Irish workers believe that the time (and money) spent on various Christmas activities whilst at work is worth it to bring teams together (59%) and celebrate the year’s success (30%). Economists have always struggled to put a value on happiness, but psychologically the Christmas period plays a critical role in preventing burnout and exhaustion.
Lee Biggins, founder and managing director of CV-Library comments: “Despite the clear costs on businesses, Christmas provides a much-needed reward for employee and team morale. Fond traditions such as the office Christmas party and slightly newer ones like Secret Santa allow for teams to bond and relax after a (hopefully) hard-working year. Just make sure that productivity doesn’t take too much of a slip under all that eggnog!”
