How to set clear expectations for Melbourne Cup work events

With the “race that stops the nation” taking place today (5 November), it’s important that employers set clear expectations for their employees if they plan on having a Melbourne Cup work event.

HR Leader recently spoke to Stephen Roebuck, associate director of consultancy at HR, employment relations, and work, health and safety adviser Peninsula Australia, who shared some insights on how employers can navigate Melbourne Cup day, ensuring things don’t get too out of hand.

“I’ve seen Melbourne Cup events get quite wild, so it’s really important that employers recognise the fact that there are obligations under the legislation that they need to consider before they have a workplace event, so I’d say in the first instance, the most important thing that you can do is set expectations very clearly with your staff and you can do that across both employment and health and safety legislation,” Roebuck said.

“Duty of care is one part of it, so it’s a good idea to think about a risk assessment if you’re going to be having an organised event and, in particular, serving alcohol; I would 100 per cent think about: do you have any policies, written policies, in [place] that set the expectations for your workforce.”

Clear guidelines and expectations on the day that employees are aware of should be the go-to strategy for employers. Not making employees overtly aware of such expectations can open a business up to incidents occurring.

“For example, do you permit the consumption of alcohol in the workplace? And in most cases, that would be a no, with the exception of organised events by the employer, so it’s important that that’s clear. And then, secondly, what sort of behaviours are you willing to tolerate? So, again, if you go to policies, you’ve got policies about behaviour, discrimination, all sorts of different policies,” Roebuck said.

“Secondly, how do you handle an event where someone steps outside of your behavioural norms? So, if something is really inappropriate, what do you do about it? And you need to make sure that’s very clear, so I’d say that’s probably the most important part is setting those expectations.”

“A really good idea for an employer then is to, even if you’ve got those policies in writing, make clear to your staff ahead of the event what those boundaries are so, quite simply, a little email going out to your teams to tell people this is a work event, that you’d be expected to behave in line with all of our work policies and procedures; it’s really important to set a start and finish time of that event.”

For employees, remembering that, technically, you’re still operating under working hours should be considered at all times.

“The key thing for an employer to remember is regardless of where the event is, and your employees are still at work, so the danger is you go to a lovely bar, there are lots of people drinking, there’s alcohol being distributed around you, employees tend to forget that they’re actually at work, and if something goes awry, like someone’s inappropriate to their work colleague, the employer is obligated to deal with that,” Roebuck said.

Although the excitement may be widespread among the workforce, not all employees may want to participate. This is definitely something that employers should keep in mind when deciding the venue.

“I would absolutely be very clear that you shouldn’t force anyone to participate. You could effectively think about where you host it, so make sure that you potentially host it away from where people are working if you’ve got a kitchen area that doesn’t distract people, and that’s where potentially having an event off-site has a benefit because you can invite people to it, and if you don’t want to come, there’s no issue there,” Roebuck said.

“If you do have an event, make sure that you’ve got some responsible people that are managing it [who] aren’t drinking, and I would say very clearly what your expectations are in terms of the amount of alcohol that you expect to be consumed.”

Overall, it’s a day of celebration that can be beneficial for workplace culture and employee cohesion. But it’s still the employer’s obligation to ensure that parameters are set and employees don’t cross the line when it comes to said celebrations.