We Fixed It, You're Welcome - Year-End Party Debate: USAA as a Case Study

Episode Date: December 23, 2024

In this episode of "We Fixed It. You're Welcome," the panel tackles the complex issue of corporate holiday parties, using USAA as a case study. The discussion explores the evolving nature of workplace celebrations, generational differences in employee expectations, and the delicate balance between employee appreciation and financial responsibility. The panel, consisting of HR, finance, and marketing experts, delves into the ROI of lavish parties, the impact on company culture, and potential alternatives to traditional celebrations. They address the challenges of inclusivity, the risks associated with holiday gatherings, and the importance of aligning celebrations with overall business health. The conversation concludes with practical suggestions for companies planning holiday events, emphasizing flexibility, employee input, and thoughtful consideration of diverse needs and preferences.USAA Bank Discussion Focus on USAA Bank's holiday party practices. Melissa shares insights about USAA's significance in San Antonio. Holiday Party Perspectives Debate on the value and purpose of corporate holiday parties. Discussion of generational differences in holiday party appreciation. USAA's Holiday Party Extravaganza Hiring of high-profile entertainment acts like Zach Brown Band. Exploration of the costs and benefits of lavish holiday celebrations. Employee Expectations and Preferences Analysis of employee preferences for bonuses vs. holiday parties. Examination of differing expectations between on-site and remote workers. Brand and Cultural Implications Discussion on how holiday parties reflect company culture and brand. Consideration of potential misalignment between party extravagance and company performance. Retention and Recruitment Impacts Exploration of how holiday parties influence employee retention and recruitment. Debate on the long-term effects of setting high expectations for celebrations. Balancing Act: Celebration vs. Business Realities Discussion on aligning holiday celebrations with overall business health. Consideration of potential negative impacts of lavish parties during challenging times. Recommendations for Corporate Holiday Celebrations Suggestions for incorporating multi-generational feedback. Ideas for offering flexibility and inclusivity in holiday celebrations. Discussion on the pros and cons of including plus-ones at company events. Conclusion and Self-Assessment Panelists evaluate whether they "fixed" the issue of lavish holiday parties. Acknowledgment of USAA's success and employee satisfaction. Disclaimer: A quick disclaimer. We are going into this somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice, financial advice or anything that would get us in trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kinds of questions everyone's thinking. Have an engaging conversation and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. By the end, if we fixed it, you're welcome. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. Music by Milo W.Produced by Straight Forward Media Group See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome back to We Fixed It You're Welcome. Each episode, we're looking at a well-known company that has something happening right now, a challenge or an opportunity, and our esteemed panelists will get to jump right into it. What would we do if we were the ones running the show? It's like Choose Your Own Adventure, only these are real companies and the stakes are larger. We'll see if we can fight our way out of a paper bag and come up with a solution. And at the end of the episode, we'll get real with ourselves and tell you how we think we did. And if we fixed it, you're welcome. Let's go around and introduce our panelists with a quick intro.

Hi, I'm Chino, founder and CEO of Light Cappuccino, a workplace consultancy and talent group. Hi, I'm Melissa Eaton. I am a season CX champion and executive. And I'm Peter Braun's. I work in finance and tech. And my name is Aaron Wampoff. I'm a career marketer. Before we start, I have to throw out a quick disclaimer. We're going into this situation somewhat cold and nothing we say should be construed as legal advice. financial advice or anything that we get any of us into trouble. These are our views and opinions. We're here to ask the kind of questions that everyone's thinking, have an engaged conversation

with each other, and maybe come to some conclusions that we feel are worth exploring. All trademarks, IP and brand elements discussed are property of their respective owners. So, Peter, today we're going to talk about USAA Bank. You brought that to us, and we'll get into why in a minute. Before we do, are there any stories or anecdotes that anyone has about USAAA Bank? So I used to live in San Antonio, and so USAA is a huge piece of the city, the culture. It's the top employer. It's got four blocks of a corporate campus. It's just an amazing place, and everybody always wanted to work there.

There's a reason it's voted top workplace and top customer service in the country. And one of the things that they do for their employees, which was really kind of exciting if you work there, was the holiday party. And so I think that's what we're going to be talking about a little bit, Peter. I will tell you that I was oftentimes very jealous. I had a lot of neighbors that worked for USAA, and it was kind of over the top, extravaganza, almost like a rock concert. There was always like trying to outdo the year before with who the special guests were. And I do believe that employees felt very engaged, very recognized and loved. But with overreaching, 35,000 employees feels like it probably was pretty costly too in a lot of different ways. So I'm

excited to have this conversation. Yeah, I am too. In USAAA, I work in finance and banking well regarded across the industry as being very customer-centric, very employee-centric, always getting the top marks, as you mentioned, Melissa, for one of the best places to live. And also, they serve an important function, you know, for our armed services and their families, providing access to financial products. All in all, great bank. But you brought up some great things. How do you take care of 35,000 people when it comes around to the holidays? And it seems like more and more corporates these days have been, at least in America, the answer seems to be the holiday party. So we're going to get into it. And just real quick, maybe we could discuss who here actually likes holiday parties?

Does anyone have an opinion when you get one of those dreaded emails from HR about what you should and shouldn't do at the holiday party to remind you about how treacherous of a corporate event this time of year could be. Anyone have any opinions? So I'll jump right in there, Peter, as the HR person who's often planning these holiday parties. And I'll say, I've seen it in two different ways. So for some and in certain organizations, the holiday party was the thing to look towards at the end of the year as a big celebration for people to come together and get to know each other outside of the workplace. Often you'd be able to bring your partner, which was really nice.

You have a fancy dinner. But I've also seen plan being a part of holiday parties where it's also in the fluorescent kitchen of the very staticy office environment where you're expected to bring in a potluck and do karaoke in front of coworkers you don't really know. And so I think there's a huge range in what a holiday party looks like. And I think it's really important for employers to kind of figure out what their identity is and how they want their holiday parties to be because I've also seen it on the spectrum where it is a drag and I'd much rather be at home. Yeah, I agree. I think I've been to one of each at least where you have a lot of fun and you meet people for a large organization.

if you're talking about, you know, thousands or hundreds or dozens. There may be counterparts or people up and down the chain you don't know. So maybe that's the one time they interface with, you know, the highest echelons of senior leadership or people that are one office over and you just don't, you know, don't have face time. So there are benefits, but we, I think we've all been to the more awkward feeling ones to or you circle the room and then you circle the room again. and say, now what?

I think one of the things that we came in talking about USAA, and it's worth talking about what their plans are for this year. So we've heard, and it's been confirmed, that this year they're hiring the Zach Brown band to play their holiday party, which sounds impressive. In the past, we've also seen USAA has invited in Journey and Joan Jett, so that you're talking about, to Melissa's point, you're talking about a high-end party,

not just a party that maybe you're doing, you know, Secret Santa Gives, but it's actually an entertainment event. And so I wonder how much of a function is, how much you want to be at a party is a function of how much the company is willing to spend. Because obviously, Zach Brown, that's costing multiple six figures, I'm sure to put on a party for all of the USAAA employees. And my question maybe is, if you don't have Zach Brown, or if you're not working for a company,

What are what are kind of what are kind of the the things that separate a good holiday party from a bat if it's not just the money that people are willing to spend or having an impressive entertainment? Anybody have any thoughts on that? Well, I think a holiday party is meant to do a few things. It's there to boost morale. It's there to strengthen team bonds. And I think in this day and age where you have a lot of remote and distributed workforce, this is an opportunity to do so. And it's also really importantly, I think it's a point of time to celebrate and provide recognitions.

You know, I would assume that's what the main purpose of this was at the beginning. It's a way to show appreciation for the years, hard work, and to align everyone with your company culture. But when you have such a huge company, when you have that many people, when you're spending that much on something like that, the question bears in mind, is this what the employees would like. And are you getting the right type of, you know, if I'm an employee and my feeling like this is what, is it worth it to me? Right.

Like, I may not like that brown. And I might not like boiled chicken and peas and carrots. So I'm assuming that USA is not serving that. It's cool. the value from that get together? Do you think that, you know, as an employee, you would be more likely to want to have that in the form of cash or some other privilege? Is it, do you think that there's a trade-off there? You think that there's a level at which it just becomes kind of a corporate excuse to have a boondoggle versus maybe some of these employees. I mean, I've worked in

organizations where employees at some of the, you know, the frontline levels are not making a lot of money. And if you, the typical holiday party can cost anywhere from, you know, $200 to $700. And that's just for food and venue and things of that nature. If you are. Per person, not only. Per person. You know, brought it up. It could be a pollux. So if you're spending $700 ahead, would your employees, I mean, some employees, $700 as a bonus, is a lot of money. Yeah. Some executives, seeing Zach Brown is worth more than $700 per head, especially if you get to bring a plus one. So who are we really, who's really benefiting from these holiday parties, do you think?

I think we have to be careful because I think there, you brought up a really good point, because there's one thing about holiday recognition and bonuses, which I think we're kind of getting into that, and I'd love to talk about that some more, versus a holiday celebration, a holiday party. One thing that you brought up earlier, which I want to kind of get to, which is very interesting to me because I think all four of us, none of us raised our hands about wanting to go to a holiday party. But there's this whole segment and generation that actually enjoys the holiday party. So what's interesting is the millennials really do enjoy it and Jan Zay. And so I kind of was like kind of trying to dig into that and ask around because that's not my generation.

And ask them like why. So there's a lot of things in today's workforce that we need to think about. So millennials and Gen Z place a really high value on building relationships and social connection and community. They see the workplace not just as a place to complete their job, but where they form meaningful connections, they spend most of their time there or on a Zoom or. or whatever they're doing. So this holiday function actually kind of provides a place and an outlet for them to kind of come together. They're also, and I can say this because of my children who are in the workforce now, very experience driven over material driven.

And I find that very interesting because I can use my son as an example. He works, he's in digital marketing. And he talks a lot about as soon as I make. X, I'm going to quit, and then I'm going to go travel the world. What? You're 28. Like, you mean. Like, and he's close.

Like, he's close to, like, it's going to happen in the next year. And I'm like, oh my gosh. You know, that's not what I would have thought of. But, like, he and his cohort of friends, that and that generation, that's how they view work. They view work as an end to the means. And the means is what they want to do with their life. Does that make sense? It makes total sense.

And I think another anecdote of that, Jamie Diamond came out this week and he said, the future of workers will be they will live to work until 100 and they will only work three and a half days a week. And so there's the understanding that we're having, you know, we're living in a new era where people can be productive for longer and they're doing knowledge work, but also that you can't work people to death. That the goal isn't to burn people out. And it's interesting, but this concept's been around for a lot.

long time. Henry Ford when he was just starting to build his factory, he thought that people would work less and would have much more leisure time. And that obviously didn't happen. But I hope it's true and I hope it happens. And I hope that you're, I hope that that attitude kind of, you know, it's kind of refreshing to see, especially most young workers. And then the last thing, just, you know, talking more about like Gen X and boomers, that we often as leaders and employees, we prefer clear boundaries. We prefer to keep work separate from our family life

or our friends and our outside life. So a holiday party ends up feeling more and I think, Erin, you kind of made that face. It feels like an obligation and it doesn't feel like an invite to like a fun event. It feels like I got to go to this because I want to get paid and I want to, yeah, I got to go.

Right? And I got to show my face. And if I don't show up, no, it's not going to be good. So that's just kind of, you know, when we talk about the workforce and why people are engaging in that, I think it's interesting because, again, it gets to Chino, something that you've talked about a lot is like employee engagement, how to make people feel like they belong to something. And yet, when you think about overarchingly how many holidays there are, what work needs to be done at end of year, and how. how do we make our employees feel like we value them? We all are individuals. And so I don't know if there's an answer to how to do that in a way that kind of embraces the diversity of the workforce. Well, I actually have an answer to that because I think the biggest topic right now

in the people and culture space is exactly what we're hitting on in terms of the multi-generational workforce, right? You have boomers who have a different relationship to work for us. You have millennials who, as we mentioned, more connection, more experiences than you have your Gen Z who are saying no a lot more than I think some of their bosses may like. And it's very interesting on figuring out what that balance is. And a lot of people in my roles in the talent strategy space, like this is our job to figure out how do we engage the people? And can, you know, the answer to that is there's no one-size-fits-all. You have to actually ask the people. And so for any organization, especially with USAAA, with the amount of money and funds that would go into hiring Zach Brown

band to come in, you better believe that, you know, for a year ahead of that, they are very likely doing a ton of different engagement surveys asking, hey, what would you like to see in your holiday party, right? Do you want to sit down dinner? Do you want some entertainment? Again, I'm not in their HR on their talent and culture team, so I'm making a guest, an educated guess, but these are best practices because the goal is to build culture engagement based on the people, you need to ask the people what they want because there's no point to throw out all that money. Could you imagine? It's probably close to millions of dollars given the size of their team for everyone to kind of be looking around sitting with their thumbs and their mouseing,

I don't want to be here. Like you want to avoid that and it kind of defeats the entire purpose of a holiday party if no one's engaged. And so best practices are asking the team what they want specifically so that, you know, you do get a bit of a mix. And so maybe there's a subsection of that time, you know, watching this beautiful entertainment other pieces may be an award for, you know, recognizing, you know, key players, different things that the company can do to make sure that everybody feels somewhat accounted for in terms of what

they need. But the reality is, of course, not everybody is going to love everything. And there's some people just by nature, it's not their thing. They don't want to be there. And I think that's okay too. I think forcing a Christmas party is the worst thing you can do. And so as long as people can opt in and out, that is important and then taking it from there. But yeah, I'm curious to hear kind of from the financial side of this because, Peter, you brought up a great point two of, you know, when people aren't making as much money, but you're watching the company blow millions or hundreds of thousands of dollars, you know, what is that line? And what do we think, you know, what's the brand messaging even from like a marketing perspective? Is that saying to

your clients and your people and your customers potentially. Absolutely. And I come from the world of financial services and their financial services end of years typically bonus season, maybe into Q1. So you have a lot of people at the end of the year that are asking themselves, am I going to get this bonus? Am I going to get, you know, sometimes they do, they announce promotions very often in financial services at set times right after bonus season. So it's a little bit competitive. You're doing your annual reviews and you're wondering how much in the pot is going to be left over and what am I going to get? And obviously, that's informed quite a bit about, you know, market conditions, how your specific company is doing. But one of the big signals to most employees is how lavish is the Christmas

party going to be. And if you're seeing the, if you're seeing a company kind of go all out for a Christmas party, I think you're setting a somewhat reasonable expectation that the employees are going to be compensating in such way. I have a few numbers here. And in a recent survey that was done by an employment agency, it says that 52% of all people are expecting a bonus this year. And out of those of those people surveyed, 60% would prefer a bonus over a holiday party. So there's already these tradeoffs that are happening inside the employee's mind. Also, what I thought was interesting is a far lower percentage of remote workers. Only 34% of them actually expect a year in bonus.

So it's almost like as we've kind of evolved out of a post-COVID world and work has obviously shifted more into a remote setting, it's interesting. I think we're seeing here, expectations between employees and employers are changing a little bit. There's a pretty big gap between on-site employees and off-site employees on what they expect for a bonus, an end-of-year bonus. On top of that, there's also differences in we're seeing, Melissa, to your point, younger generations wanting that in-person, that in-person experience. And I wonder how much of this is we're creating kind of classes of employees that are expecting different things, both from a compensation perspective, but also from a cultural perspective.

So it's very interesting to see this. I would have almost guessed the opposite. I would have guessed that remote workers who skew a little bit younger would prefer to not. not not have a holiday party, but we're seeing the exact opposite, as Melissa is saying, is that some of these younger workers that skew more remote actually want those in-person experiences. So it's been a mixed bag and it's interesting. To your point, Chino, it really comes down to the company itself and what they're trying to build from a cultural perspective. I think here you bring up a really important component around expectation setting.

So I worked at a company that gave a holiday bonus every year, and it was amazing. And it had nothing to do with performance. It was, we put it in our budget. One year when we weren't doing good, I volunteered that we should not give the holiday bonus. And the president, he of course was like, that that's not acceptable. It's always been the case. And it was a full week of salary.

Wow. And everyone knew that they got it the first Friday of December. And you got it, whether you started working there November 10th versus, you know, it was a built-in to the finance budget. I'm sure the CFO didn't like it either. But it was, it was, and it was millions of dollars,

because there were a lot of employees. But once she built that in to Chino's and Peter's point, and Aaron, I know you feel the same way, but that expectation has been set. So people expect it. Now it's better, it's going to show up.

It's going to show up every month or every year. And so the issue is that a holiday bonus is much more simple to implement versus all of the plans. and getting a committee together and all of the things that you need to do. But then you've set this expectation with your employees that is hard to break. And then if you do break it, you're causing Peter to your point, like the idea of like, what's happening to the company? Are we going down?

Like what's wrong, right? And so I think that there's a really important balance. And, you know, I definitely would love to hear Erin from you about the brand that the company has and how these holiday parties kind of live into that and lean into that. And how like showing a holiday extravaganza on social media when you just met with the board and you just said we didn't hit our third quarter numbers. Yeah, thanks. So I think with the bonus structure, you can keep that. as external or internal as you want, right? So maybe you're known within the industry for being generous around the holidays,

but it doesn't necessarily travel as visibly on social and elsewhere as the extravagance of a holiday party. So it brings it back to that question of who is the holiday party for. And if I'm being cynical, I might even say it's not even for the employees. It's for the outside. So come look at us. We had a great year. We're poised to have another great year.

We got it's maybe the equivalent of, you know, the bigger, bigger and badder they get. Maybe it's the equivalent of putting your name on a stadium. It's just showing abundance, right? Look at us. We can afford the A-list comedian. We can afford the mission star chef. Look at how, you know, look at how we're aligning ourselves. And it's, again, cynically, maybe a signal to the outside.

By the way, we, you know, employees had fun too. I want to see I'm fascinated by that point, Aaron. So I think as somebody who is fascinated by, you know, return on investment, what you're, what you're saying is the ROI is maybe not necessarily for the employee, but there is an ROI somewhere, whether you're talking about brand building, whether you're talking about, you know, extending your reputation. Maybe you're inviting VIP clients to the meeting or suppliers, things of that nature, maintaining relationships. I'm curious. And this is, I'd love to get Chino's perspective on this. Is having a party that you can point to? Does it pay dividends on the employee retention?

Does it pay dividends with attracting new talent? Does it, is there something that is that actually used as a tool in the recruitment process and in the retention process in your experience? Hell yeah. Hell yeah. You know, it's funny because we originally talked about like the disparities even in salary. Some people might not be able to ever afford to see Zach Brown, but they can't because it's at their company party.

It's something that you get to talk about for often like the rest of your life. It's like, you know, that one time we had Zach Brown here or journey, that is pretty big. So as a USAA employee, there's that prestige, there's that level. And some people, I will say, ask in the recruitment process, what will the holiday party be this year? You know, are you going to have a big one so that I can. be a part of that and have those stories. So it is a huge factor when it comes to retention. When you look at even best places to work and cultural awards, that definitely leads into it. Those tend to happen in terms of the submissions for these awards at the tail end of the year.

Guess what everybody's thinking about. You know, we're about to see Zach Brown. Let's, you know, how happy I am at work, pretty happy. We're about to have an internal concert. This is pretty cool, right? I can bring my spouse potentially and get to rub shoulders with the CEO that I never get to speak to. So it is a huge retention play. But back to Aaron's point, who is that for? Is it for the internal team? Yes, I would say, you know, it's great for culture. But on the real, I do think it's a bit of a profanity, not profanity, but a vanity project in a way where, you know, it's a look at me.

here's what we can do. You know, if you want to be a part of something that's successful, come join us. This is what we do. This is how we celebrate our people. And so it's really interesting because, you know, culture and talent, it's not just about the people. There's a lot of that employer branding that people sometimes forget. And so there's some, you know, bedded interest in making sure that you do put on a good show

at the end of the day. But, you know, is that exploitative in any way? for the sake of branding or is it true to what you'd want to do as an employer of that magnitude for your people at the end of the year? So I think I'd hope when you're spending millions of dollars, it's for the people. But the reality is sometimes when it gets so big and this has just become the norm, it becomes the standard that they're like, we can't actually go down because then people are going to start questioning why, what's wrong?

What's going on here? Are you not able to afford this? Are we not getting our bonuses? There's a bunch of other questions because you've set this impossibly high standard for yourself. So I do think it is also a trap. Some companies can fall into of more, more, more, and then not being able to sustain that.

And you've also seen it where there have been companies, and I've been a part of one where we, small team, we went to cans, you know, 20 people. And it was, you know, I was 15 people went. huge you know we went on a private island which was like 800 euros just to show up on this island and that didn't include like the four days that trip cost a lot of money and you know what was the rub is a few months later they had to let a few people go and so you know where at the end of the day when we go back to r oi what is the point why are we doing this can we do this because it's all great to say, I was at Zach Brown, but if you lose your job two months later and you lose the retention and, you know, you have to restart, there's a cost to that too.

So, you know, if you can afford it, great. If you aren't struggling, I'd reconsider spending thousands, millions of dollars on something like that. Yeah. It's a very important, Aaron, I think, from a brand perspective, to understand where the business is overarchingly. Because I think that we have a lot of digital marketers that want to put the story out there on LinkedIn

or wherever they want to put it to say, hey, look at us, you know. But then it doesn't align with the business timeline. So you brought up this as just a random example. And I know you didn't know this happened to one of the companies I was at. We had a Michelin Star Chef. Cook a meal. Yeah. Do like a little thing with some of the agents and da-da-da-da-da. And it was really fantastic, right? Like, who doesn't want to have this guy, you know, cut fly in and flew in the top agents and they had a meal made and da-da-da-da. Posted it on

LinkedIn. That same week, there were layoffs at the common. Yeah. So again, it was a little tone deaf. It wasn't that like we weren't trying to celebrate what this segment of our business was doing, which was, you know, and we hadn't had that set up for a long time. But how do you think the employees felt that got let go? Or how do you think like our customers were like, whoa, that's weird because I just try to call in and talk to Melissa and she's no longer there. Right. Right. Well, that has ripple effect from a brand perspective too. Right. Whether it's that week or three months later, you still, it's, it's. It's still in short-term memory that you had a lavish bonanza, spare no expense.

And then now you're making all the tough choices and calling people into the room and, you know, all the repercussions. It's not causing effect, right? Chances are the money spent, the budget allocated to the holiday party did not preserve or impact those, you know, the jobs, the people that were being let go. it's not, chances are it's not, it was going to happen anyway, right? But what is that signal to the outside world? If holiday parties in and of themselves have a brand element to them,

what are people on the outside supposed to think when there's hidden this other activity that happens around that time or in the wake of the grand blowout holiday party? And taking that a step further too, Aaron talking about externally, but internally, what does that mean for the people who are left behind? He got to experience that extravaganza, but they just watch their coworker get let go and, you know, they have a family, they have a mortgage, they have to pay the bills. It's like, am I feeling safe? Is that, you know, am I looking for the next job?

So maybe I didn't get let go. But what does that mean for me and my feelings and like net promoter scores is one thing that we talk a lot about in talent and culture? and how will that change next year, right? So there is a huge, you know, challenge if there is a business constraint here. And we need to think about what does the business look like and try to project earlier than that. But Melissa, go ahead. I kind of cut you off. Well, no, I was going to actually, I was going to say for us to actually solve this holiday issue problem or, you know, question.

And I was kind of addressing it to Peter. I was going to fold in a lot of the points, Chino, you've already talked about. So first of all, I think you need to be able to incorporate multi-generational feedback. I loved what you said there, right? Using representatives from all, in a distributed workforce from all levels, understanding what they would like to see happen in a celebration format. Offer flexibility because Aaron doesn't want to come and either does Melissa. And so like make attendance optional depending upon what the talent is and whether, you know,

what dinner is, whether all will come and maybe provide something else instead, right? So you get a gift instead of coming to the event and you're not paying a plane ticket to fly to San Antonio, Texas or that event. Really focusing on inclusion. I loved how you, Chino brought this up as well about, and I think you're seeing this in like a big conferences right now. I know all of us have probably been in a conference in, you know, New York or in Las Vegas, but designing the event that offers kind of a mix for all the different types of people. So like quiet areas, like a concert may not be the thing for everybody, right?

So like people might want a gaming room where there's like games that can be done or, you know, like just I've seen that happen a lot more in these big event spaces. And I find that to be really refreshing because there's an ability to connect. And it's kind of fun, like vending machines with like gifts and different gift cards and try to win and things like that. And then just pairing it with like the tangible awards that people want. And so Chino brought that up about like, do you even know what your employees want? So would they prefer a gift card? Would they prefer to give their portion of a 500 person per head to the food bank? in their town. Like, give them optionality. Or, you know what? The one number one thing our teams

loved that we would do was we would, we would literally, this is before flexible PTO, but we used to offer PTO and a raffle, right? Like you get, you get eight hours a free day and, you know, people would would do that. So I just think there's different ways to, to engage and approach. And appreciate and add value to the employee group and recognize them. Holiday parties, there's a lot of risk involved. We all know the person that has too much to drink. You know, USAA, an insurance company, do you have an open bar? Do you not?

You know, and then the money side of it. So the optics and the brand. You want to build culture, but you got to do it very intentionally. So then, Melissa, you bring up some great points. So maybe we could bring it home here. If you're a corporate, a corporate strategist or if you were working in people and culture and you're planning these holiday parties, I hear you loud and clear. Offer optionality, some great ideas around making a charitable contribution or offering people the ability to take the cash. Does anyone have any other ideas?

What does everyone think about the plus one and whether or not you should be including a plus one, doing it during the holiday party during work hours? Has anyone have any opinions on what the do's or don't see or should be? So my heart of hearts, like, it's nice to have your partner there, but, you know, it still is a work event. Sometimes for some people, it could be an added layer of stress because you have to, you know, manage your plus one doesn't usually know anyone that you're working with. If you're new, it's an added expense from like, you know, organizing standpoint. I do think, you know, it works when you're a very small team. I would say anywhere from like 15 to like 30 people. But when you get beyond that, it's quite significant.

And it can be a challenge. And then you have to look at inclusivity from a, you know, parents and caregivers. That doesn't mean that you can, you know, afford to go have a babysitter or for someone not to be there to look after your mom that's at your house. So there's that piece there too. And, you know, going even further, for people in different types of relationships,

depending on the culture and the corporate structure, right? People in LGBT plus partnerships, maybe that's not something they want to do, or maybe it is something they want to do. But I think, you know, you do need to make a stand as a company of whether you're going to do this or not and then allow people to have the option

to bring their partners if they want to, because otherwise if you're forced, and I've seen that too, that can lead to a lot of problems as well. Well, our show is called We Fixed It. You're welcome. So let's do a little self-assessment here.

Melissa, USAA and Age of Lavish holiday parties, did we fix it? I think we brought up some really good points. So I think we're very close to not all of us are USAA and can afford that budget. But I do think that we've brought up really great points for any of you thinking about what you want to do in the next coming holiday season. So I feel good about it. What do you think, Tina? I'd say we fixed it.

Obviously, not knowing what's going on internally, clearly they've had the money for this for a long time. So if you can do it and your team wants it, go for it. Who are we to tell you no? That's what your team wants. What do you say, Peter? Well, I think USAA has done a great job and the employees have done a great job

in earning their success. So if they want to go out and it's something that's important to the culture, I think it's great. What I think we could have probably spent a whole other episode on is what to tell the employees to not screw up at a holiday party. So maybe that we could. And I'll take notes, Aaron, so if you can give me some tips on what I shouldn't be doing, maybe if you can give me a future episode. That sounds great. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of We Fix It. You're welcome.

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