ALCONOT™ – Tackling toxic boozy work culture

Tackling Toxic boozy work culture

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/tackling-toxic-boozy-work-culture-4913857/

The URL above is for an article published in 2022 on Linked-In News by Vicky McKeever,

Sourced from

The Financial Times – https://www.ft.com/content/7cfa9036-afc0-4736-9ff0-699e4243e075

The Independent – https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/lloyds-of-london-boozy-lunches-alcohol-sexual-harassment-scandal-city-of-london-culture-a8859976.html

The Telegraph –  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/12/linklaters-appoints-sober-chaperones-keep-lawyers-check-boozy/

The article concentrated on the PWC although the articles above cover other areas.

In the linked-in article Vicky McKeever covers an event in which an PWC employee suffered a serious head injury after attending a work event, the employee alleged that the event involved a game of pub-golf which involves serious consumption of alcohol. The employee claimed that PWC owed him a duty of care.

Full articles are above for anyone who wishes to read them in detail.

The issue is that such games and excessive drinking has always been part and parcel of the corporate life, especially in the UK and US. Other countries are less inclined to overdo consumption. As a veteran of 35+ years of corporate life in blue chip companies and or with blue chip clients I know this to be true.  Having been in corporation in the UK and working on deals, it was obvious to me that client entertainment, particularly when it involved closing a deal was an excuse to go all out and make sure the client and sales people were at the top of their drinking game.

This is also true of corporate events for fee earning and support staff in big corporations, I personally saw one person being sacked on a night out by an anhibriated colleague facing up to his both who was nearly at the same level, though she was not as bad. My colleague had a ‘slight grudge’ for being overlooked for delivering a training course. This all happened in a winery / brewery in Southern Europe.  All in front of me (non drinker).

He (my colleague) was sacked by his manager and she was distressed at what had happened but held it all together, it was a verbal tirade between the pair of them, something that we should not have been a witness to.

The morning after, it was a strange story, as usual, my colleague (he worked in the same office as me , good guy, but not a friend) knew nothing about the night before and held his head in his hands when we told him.

Lucky for him that his manager had managed to get so drunk that she had no recollection of the event either. So sacked, then un-sacked all in one night.

In the linked in article there is talk of serious injury, which did not happen in the tale I told above.

This article about PWC and others like it could have a massive impact on the future of corporate responsibility during events where alcohol consumption is allowed and (in the past) often encouraged beyond a point of safety. The issue that the case and article highlights is despite the drinkers personal choice to venture beyond his own ‘safety’ the case suggests that the responsibility lies with the employer.

This is an ideal market for ALCONOT™ and for other alcohol free manufacturers.

It makes sense for companies to reduce alcohol intake and cover their own responsibilities by offering no alcohol events, in my opinion having been a manager in the biggest consultancy firm in the world at the time and working for big blue it’s time the culture in the UK and US changed. We don’t see excessive alcohol consumption in mainland European nations or even further West and East, it’s totally frowned on. In the UK and UK and EIRE actually it has been seen more as a badge of hours and measure of stamina. Can that be right?