During the go-go days of the dot-com boom, I marveled at some of the perks my clients were providing to employees. Video games and foosball tables; on-site auto detailing; and the biggest shocker to me: open bars at work. One client used the phrase “going to the opera” to describe its regular company-sponsored outings to the local watering holes. But then came the dot-com crash, and I thought these days were forever behind me. As a management labor lawyer, I was certainly not unhappy to see company-sponsored alcohol consumption go by the wayside.
However, it looks like it’s “turn back the clock day” at some workplaces. An article in today’s Wall Street Journal tells us about trendy employers “stocking full bars and beer fridges, installing on-site taverns and digitized kegs and deploying engineering talent to design futuristic drink dispensers.” Dropbox even promotes its “whiskey Fridays” in its recruiting materials. If these employers are to be believed, such perks are necessary to attract and retain talent-especially younger employees.
You can call me a fuddy-duddy –like my college-aged kids do — but you can’t ignore the fact that such practices create enormous potential problems for employers. Let’s run through a partial list of the parade of horribles:
- a drunk employee has an accident on the way home from work, injuring himself or others;
- impaired employees get carried away and make sexually or racially insensitive remarks;
- alcohol-fueled sexual assaults occur;
- non-drinking employees feel pressure to attend these events to “bond” with managers and coworkers;
- employees begin requesting accommodations for disabilities, such as gluten-free beer;
- employees who do not drink for religious or health reasons claim religious or disability discrimination when they are denied opportunities given to those who partake in the company “happy hour.”
Maybe I just need to accept the fact that a new generation is entering the workplace, and new norms now apply. But until liability standards change, I think it is downright foolish for employers to take on the risks associated with sponsoring alcohol-related events in the workplace.
Bah Humbug!