What do staff really want for new year? by Adi Gaskell, Management Correspondent on 02-Jan-2013

It's that time of year when workplaces around the world engage in bouts of forced joviality. Parties often form the centrepiece of this festive glee, as colleagues are forced together and too much alcohol is consumed in order to survive the affair.

A new survey by Glassdoor underlines just how little employees care for Christmas parties. They asked people what they most wanted out of their work in 2013. Some standouts included:

• 73% want a cash bonus;
• 60% were hoping for a pay rise;
• 36% wanted extra time off;
• 13% wanted more flexible working.

You’ll no doubt have noticed that there’s no mention of a Christmas party in that list. Sadly that appears in the next section of the survey on the things employees don’t want.

It appears that just 5% of employees really want a Christmas party. So what should you do as an employer?

If your team have done a great job this year, then by all means have a celebration, but make sure you link the celebration to the hard work and success that’s been achieved over the past year. This way you’re making clear what it is that’s resulted in the celebration and providing a benchmark for next year.

The moral of the story is that it’s much better to provide employees with the rewards they want and to then link those rewards directly to their performance over the past year.

Adi Gaskell is a management writer

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