Balancing booze and your agency business

Agency Leadership Podcast

In this episode, Chip and Gini discuss the importance of having clear alcohol policies in agencies. They explore the evolving norms of alcohol consumption in professional settings, the necessity of having written rules, and the implications for office events, client meetings, and expenses.

Drawing on their experiences and insights from expert Patrick Rogan of Ignition HR, the hosts emphasize the need for leadership to set examples and consider the legal and liability aspects of alcohol use. They suggest practical guidelines for limiting alcohol use to ensure professionalism and reduce risks.

Key takeaways

• Chip Griffin: “My baseline is you should have rules about alcohol in place because it makes life easier for everybody. What those rules are… now that’s where it gets a little bit more complicated.”
• Gini Dietrich: “In today’s day and age, everybody expects to have some sort of policy around it and it’s a really easy way to protect yourself and avoid taking the risk. Get something in writing and enforce it as needed.”
• Chip Griffin: “Focus on leading by example here. The policies that you have need to be the same ones that you are adhering to because it makes it so much easier to enforce it.”
• Gini Dietrich: “Most clients expect the agency to pick up the bill. So having a no alcohol expensed policy doesn’t work from that perspective.”

Resources

• Agency policies on using and expensing alcoholic beverages

View Transcript

The following is a computer-generated transcript. Please listen to the audio to confirm accuracy.

Chip Griffin: Hello, and welcome to another episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast. I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: And I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: Gini, I need a drink.

Gini Dietrich: Awesome. Let’s do it.

Chip Griffin: You know, I, I have thought about how sometimes we should do like, you know, an Agency Leadership Podcast happy hour show where we are actually just drinking and we can start to give even more unvarnished opinions than what we usually do, but, but given how blunt we tend to be, I do get some criticism occasionally from folks about how blunt I can be.

That may not be the best idea.

Gini Dietrich: I think it’s a great idea. We should do it. We should definitely do it.

Chip Griffin: But if we do it, we probably ought to have some policies around it. Probably. It’s important to have rules for your business around alcohol.

Gini Dietrich: Yes. You actually did a little bit of digging and research on this to see how many agency owners have a policy on alcohol use and what it might be.

So let’s talk about that because I think it’s interesting and it’s definitely something that we should all be thinking about if we don’t already have a policy in place.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, it is certainly something that, that I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to in recent years, but, over the last few months, I’ve been asked by a few different agency owners about alcohol policies in terms of, use in office environments, as well as, expensing, particularly when travel or they’re at events, that kind of thing.

And so, you know, most of the time when I get questions, I have my immediate answer, I’m like, this is, this is what you should do. And it’s, it’s built up over the years. But alcohol is one of those things that there’s been a real evolution over the course of my career. When I first started working in Washington in the early 1990s, it was incredibly common to have martinis at lunch.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: This was not the 1950s. It wasn’t multiple martinis, a martini, but it was very common.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: And then by the mid 90s, it had transitioned from martinis to wine. And because it was wine, sometimes it was two glasses of wine. And then as we moved into the later 90s, it went down to one glass of wine. And then over time, it basically went to no alcohol at all at lunch.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And, and in general, I would say that, You know, in the last 10 or 15 years when I was on business travel, if you had alcohol at a business lunch, it was the exception rather than the rule.

Gini Dietrich: Yep. Yep.

Chip Griffin: But happy hours have been and continue to be very popular. Lots of agencies have had them in the office.

I know I have. Mm hmm. Sometimes at restaurants or bars.

Gini Dietrich: Yep.

Chip Griffin: Certainly when traveling, it’s incredibly common if you’re out with clients or prospects to have alcohol. And to expense it. But those things have all shifted over time. And so it is, I think, worthwhile to look at. What should agencies be doing today?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah, I think you’re right.

I mean, we, you know, when we had an office, we always had wine, wine Fridays, wine 30 on Friday, 4 30 Fridays. And I provided the alcohol for my team. So everybody on Friday afternoon would have a little happy hour at the office and then go start their weekends. And like you, you know, we always, it wasn’t, wasn’t lunch every day, but Fridays, we definitely had drinks at lunch.

I could personally can’t do that anymore because I would fall asleep. I’d be sitting at my desk like, but I also think there’s something to be said for, you know, I think lots of people go to conferences, they go to sales meetings and they just put one, tie one on and there are lots of regrets the next day.

So I think there’s something to be said for limiting or putting a policy around limiting what your team can do, especially when clients are around. Because it’s not always appropriate to tie one on with the people that, that pay for your services.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. I mean, I, and I think that, you know, , so some of this comes down to some good common sense and thought about.

Particularly you as an owner are doing things. Part of it does come down to actually having written policies for your team in part, because your employees want to know what the rules are. Sure. Absolutely. And it’s helpful for them to know what they are so that they don’t have to, you know, keep coming to you.

You know, hey mom and dad, can I have a drink at this event or that event? You know, can I expense it? Or worse, they do expense it. They come to you after the fact and you say, no, I’m not paying for that.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: And that obviously is a very uncomfortable conversation, to have. So, you know, I, I think my, my baseline is you should have rules in place because it makes life easier for everybody. What those rules are…

now that’s where it gets a little bit more complicated. And I do think it’s important that you, as the owner live by these rules as well. Because it’s very, very difficult in any kind of policy where they see the owner doing something wildly different from what they do. And so if you want some exceptions, then you need to, to design your policy in such a way that the exceptions you want actually fit into an overall rules structure as opposed to, well, it’s whenever I feel like it, I can do it, because that, that doesn’t set a good example for your team.

Gini Dietrich: So, and I don’t know what the liability is either, like around having alcohol that you provide alcohol at work and then somebody gets in a car accident or something or gets a DUI, there’s probably some liability there too. So I think you have to be really thoughtful about how you approach this and what, what you allow and what you don’t allow, what you do.

Like it used to be that I could go get my hair cut and my hairdresser would provide a glass of wine. And because of the liability on that, they stopped doing that, which kind of sucks that you get punished for one person’s behavior. But, like they got sued because one person had too many drinks while they were getting their haircut and got a DUI.

So there, there is that piece of it that you have to be thoughtful about as well. So it’s not just thinking about it from the perspective of, you know, what kinds of things do I want to do? Do I want to be able to go out and order a bottle of wine with, the client and have an expense, or do we charge it back to them or whatever?

It’s more than that. It’s talking to your insurance company. It’s talking to your attorney. It’s ensuring that you’re protected as well, because there can be a lot that come back to get you without you even realizing it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And I, I think, you know, obviously we’re not lawyers or, you know, insurance agents or any of that kind of stuff, but you know, ultimately you do need to make some decisions about how much risk you’re willing to take because there’s, I mean, certainly there’s, you can’t get to a, a no risk situation in anything that you do in life or in business. But, you know, one of the things that I did with my own businesses was I tended to move away from hosting anything within the office that involved alcohol, because then it made it too easy if someone were to get into an accident. And people, even if the alcohol wasn’t the actual cause, the reality is in today’s society that people will sue just about anybody and they’ll look for the deepest pockets they can find, which is rarely the individual who did something and it’s usually someone upstream from that. And so I felt more comfortable paying for happy hours in restaurants or bars, because then at least a, a bunch of the burden shifts to them to make judgments on over serving and those kinds of things. It doesn’t mean that you’ve eliminated your exposure, but in my view, at least I felt I had shifted enough of it.

To quote unquote professionals, right? Because they have to have some level of training in order to do that. Whereas in the office, it’s just alcohol sitting on a conference table. Usually everybody kind of pour their own, and then it’s on you as the owner to say, no, no, you look like you’ve had too much, which you don’t really want to be in that position with employees, right?

Generally speaking anyway. So, you know, but, but you need to decide as an owner, what you’re comfortable with from a risk standpoint, it’s also good if you’re going to be hosting these things or paying for happy hours for your team to talk to your insurance agent and make sure that your current coverages allow for some level of protection for you in the event that something were to happen. Because you always want to think through what, what are the worst case scenarios that could realistically happen.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And, and then decide, is that a risk you’re willing to take?

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think, you know, there you, I think we’ve all experienced this where you go to a conference and you’ve paid for the ticket and everything and the meal plan and they give you two tickets for drinks at the opening night event. The reason they do that is so that they don’t killed on expensive drinks, but also for the liability piece of it.

So there are opportunities where you can say, Hey, let’s all go out and the first round’s on me. You can do stuff like that. And then whatever happens after that, and after you leave, the liability and the risk to you is a lot less because you paid for the first drink, that was it on the company dime, you left. Then they can go on their weekend, do their weekends and whatever happens to be, so you’re less liable from that perspective.

Chip Griffin: Right, and I do think that You know, you need to, as you say, you, you know, you, you kind of limit it and then you go away. Right. So that you’re not part of it. I, you know, I, and I do think, I mean, in the olden days, that was very common, right? You had, you hosted the holiday party and all the senior management left so that the, the quote unquote kids could have their fun.

I think even today, we need to be careful about that though. Because there are other things that can happen during those times. I mean, you know, I can’t tell you the number of stories I’ve heard about holiday parties. Oh, sure. Even in very recent years, in the last three or four years, where things have gone wildly wrong from an HR standpoint.

And so, you need to think about whether, whether that, that old fashioned notion of senior management leaves and lets everybody have fun still works in 2024. I, honestly, I’m not sure it does. And I, I think if I had a larger business, I’m not sure that I would. I think that I would stick around for the entirety of it and, and perhaps curtail it sooner.

And if people want to go do an after party somewhere else or whatever, that’s fine. But I, I would be reluctant to allow some of the shenanigans that I know went on in, in olden days as it were.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think the difference is like, I had that experience too, when I worked at the large agency that senior, like we would have a holiday party or our annual meeting and senior leadership would leave, but the bar was still open and the party was still going, the company was still paying for it, even though senior leadership had left. Like from my perspective, I would say first rounds on me buy the first round of drinks.

And then I like, that’s it. That’s all the company’s doing. You’re at a restaurant. You guys can go to a different bar. You can stay here. Like, but you you’re on your own after this. And I think that taking down the liability from that perspective helps.

Chip Griffin: And so, you know, one of the things as we think about all of these questions, , I went to my friend Patrick Rogan from IgnitionHR, who is my go to on HR things because I recognize where I’ve hit the limits of my real knowledge and where I’m just kind of making stuff up, which sometimes it’s okay to make stuff up, but in the areas like this, probably better to get a little bit of guidance.

And so I asked him for his perspective on it. And so in the article that I wrote on the SAGA website, and we’ll link that in the show notes. He actually provided a paragraph of suggested text for your employee handbook on alcohol use, but I think that the key thing in there is it says that in no event may an employee consume alcoholic beverages to the point of intoxication.

And so I think that, you know, you want, it’s, sometimes you want to be able to say, well, you know, you can have one drink or two drinks, but the problem is that those all impact that people differently differently. Sure. , you know, there’s a, there’s a local restaurant, here, in New Hampshire that serves what I call bathtub martinis, because I think they have, literally the equivalent of two to three martinis in the glasses, these giant glasses, which frankly I hate. I love a good martini. I do not like them in those glasses because if you drink it at a reasonable pace, it is warm by the time you’re done.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: So I’m very much, I like the old school, very small martini glasses. Then I can have two or three and still be fine.

Gini Dietrich: Right.

Chip Griffin: And it’s all cold and enjoyable throughout the whole time, because I’m not, I don’t generally, particularly at this point in my life, go out and just drink to get drunk.

Gini Dietrich: No. Right.

Chip Griffin: That is, that is not my idea of fun at my age. So, you know, so I think a standard like what Patrick suggests, which is that it’s, it’s you, you have to make the judgment as an employee that you are not intoxicated in a work environment, whether that work environment is in the office, because you’ve had a holiday party in the office, or whether it’s out to dinner with a client or whatever, if you’re on the job, then you need to be not intoxicated.

Gini Dietrich: I think that’s a good role. So what else did he say besides no time ever, can you be intoxicated?

Chip Griffin: So I, I, you know, his point was, was there. And then we also talked about the expense side of things, because this is, this actually is where a bunch of the questions that I’ve gotten have come up. Because it’s, part of it is the actual use of alcohol by the employees, but part of it is, I don’t really want to be paying for it.

Sure. Alcohol can be expensive.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah.

Chip Griffin: And so. You know, his, his view on that and his suggestion was that you should allow reasonable expensing of alcohol. So you should not have a, a zero alcohol policy. But this might be, you know, where you do say, you know, you, you have to limit yourself to one to two drinks that are at least that are expensed.

If you’re on a business travel, and that you would prohibit the, the expensing of like mini bar alcohol or things like that, you know? So it, if it’s, if it’s part of you going out particularly with clients or prospects or even team members, fine, have a drink or two it’s, it’s on the company. You know, you may also want to suggest that it has to be reasonable, you know, not like Louis the 13th or something like that, 250 a pour or whatever it costs these days.

And by the way, I’ve tasted Louis the 13th. It’s not worth it. So if you see it and want to do it.

Oh, it’s not?

No, it is not. There are, there are plenty of, of much better brandies at much lower prices.

Gini Dietrich: Interesting.

Chip Griffin: So, yeah. That you are paying for the crystal bottle in that particular case, because the bottle itself is worth more.

Gini Dietrich: Do You get to take the bottle home then?

Chip Griffin: I mean, if you bought the whole bottle, but if you buy a whole bottle at a restaurant, then you are not listening to this podcast.

You’re not listening to this show.

I pretty much guarantee that. That is big time money. But so, so I think the bottom line is that you do need to, you frankly need to allow your employees to be able to expense alcohol.

I think it’s, it’s a bad idea just to say no all the way, because then, you know, frankly, most of your employees these days probably aren’t doing a ton of travel and so you, you know, I do believe that it’s up to you to try to make it at least a little bit enjoyable for them and to feel like, yes, I’m away from home and it’s kind of a pain, but.

You know, there are little treats to it, and if that little treat is that you get to have a martini or two at dinner, so be it, right? That’s, you need to invest in that, in my view.

Gini Dietrich: And I think there’s, when you’re with clients, most clients expect the agency to pick up the bill. Whether or not it’s billed back to the, to the client is, it’s up to you and your policy, but most clients, when you’re out to dinner with them, they expect it and they expect to be able to drink as well.

So not having a no, no alcohol expensed policy doesn’t work from that perspective either. Because then all of a sudden you’re putting your employees in a position to be able to say, well, actually I can’t pay for this, which is super uncomfortable. And then they might end up doing it.

Chip Griffin: Yeah, that would be awful.

Oh, I mean, I have, I have seen bosses who have tried to have it so that their team can’t expense alcohol, but they can expense client’s or prospect’s alcohol, which is awful too,

Gini Dietrich: No! yeah.

Chip Griffin: Because, because part of the issue is, you know, if, if it’s an environment where it, you know, quote unquote, makes sense for people to be consuming alcohol, a lot of times the client won’t order anything if you don’t, right.

And so. You know, I mean, obviously if you don’t drink alcohol, that’s fine. You don’t, you don’t order alcohol if for whatever reason you don’t drink. However, if in, I mean, I think a general good rule of thumb when you’re out as a guest of somebody is that you don’t order more than what they’re ordering. Right. So, you know, you don’t order caviar unless they’ve ordered caviar.

You don’t order, you know, the nice bottle of wine unless they’ve ordered a nice bottle of wine. I mean, that’s sort of typical. eating out etiquette, at least the way I was always taught. And so a lot of that shows up in the business environment as well. So, you know, if you have a rule that your team can’t drink, then, then now you’re inhibiting that social situation that, that clients, as you point out, frankly expect. Whether they should or not is a whole other question, but, but it is absolutely something that most prospects and clients would expect the agency to be doing.

Gini Dietrich: So what other advice do you have in your article from your research?

Chip Griffin: So, I mean, I, I think the, the other bit was just, you know, really focusing on leading by example here. So the policies that you have need to be the same ones that, that you are adhering to because it makes it so much easier to enforce it.

Now that said, I think you can make some clear exceptions that, you know, that the senior management can approve exceptions to this rule, for example, right, for things like holiday parties, right, you know, we’re paid where perhaps you can expense a little bit more for that. I would never want to have an exception to the intoxication rule.

I think you need to be in a position where you’re prepared to have tough conversations with people. If they’re not living up to these standards. And this is, this is one of those areas where it could very easily become uncomfortable. So you may want to talk with an HR advisor or something like that before you have the conversation.

But if you observe team members who are going past the point of intoxication, whether it’s just with team members or even out with clients, that’s something that you need to address. Because you’re not going to be there for all of those situations. And so you need to make sure that it’s something that’s, that they understand the expectations that you have as a business. Because it becomes really, it’s a really slippery slope in my view and my experience from observing.

That, that if people start to think it’s okay to do this, they just keep going further and further. And, and we all know that alcohol impairs judgment, right? I mean, this is not, this is not a major revelation. And so it is an area where you need to really, I think, set a strong standard for what those limits are.

It shouldn’t be none in most cases, but you know, it does need to be clear and you do need to enforce it.

Gini Dietrich: Is it a fireable offense?

Chip Griffin: Well, I mean, I think, look, I think any time you violate policy is potentially a fireable offense. I think typically I would look at it in terms of is it a, you know, a first offense or something like that, in which case, unless it’s accompanied by something else, right?

You’re intoxicated and you also harass somebody or something like that, OK, well, now, now we’ve got a twofer and now you’re probably gone. If it’s quote, unquote, simple intoxication, then to me, I would, I would probably just address that and say, Hey, this, this can’t happen again, but I think it, it is all very much on the specific circumstances involved, but people need to understand that you’re serious about these things.

And this is not, you’re not just putting this in the handbook as a CYA kind of thing. And it is something where you are clearly communicating what your expectations are.

Gini Dietrich: So go to Chip’s blog and get the statement that Patrick wrote as a good place to start and really think about what this might look like for you and your team.

Both just for professionalism and, and also to, to make yourself less liable and risky.

Chip Griffin: Yeah. And look, and your rules may not be the exact same things, right? It’s more to your point. You need to think about it and you need to figure out what is right for your business. And, you know, we can offer what our experiences have been, what, you know, what our view on it is, and Patrick obviously shares his, but you, this is an area where you need to think carefully about it and, and not just allow it to sort of develop by osmosis with your team. Because I think a lot of agencies are, are handling it that way today. And I’ve just, I’ve seen too many problems crop up even before, you know, today’s more restrictive environment for businesses on things like this. And you really don’t want to be caught in a situation where because you didn’t think about it,

Gini Dietrich: right.

Chip Griffin: Problems got bigger than they should have.

Gini Dietrich: Yeah. And I think this is an area that it’s really easy to, to protect yourself.

So it’s, you know, I think in, in today’s day and age, everybody expects to have some sort of policy around it and it’s a really easy way to protect yourself and just don’t take the risk. Get something in writing and enforce it as needed.

Chip Griffin: Absolutely. So with that, now that we’ve tackled that tough topic, I’m going to go have a drink. Because it’s, it’s only lunchtime.

It’s only noon.

It’s only, well, it’s almost one here, but still, it’s not five o’clock. And if it’s not five o’clock, I guess it’s five o’clock somewhere though. As the song says, but anyway, on that note, before we go off the rails, while I’m completely slow, so sober,

Gini Dietrich: sober, are you though?

Chip Griffin: Who knows?

Gini Dietrich: Who knows

Chip Griffin: That will draw to an end this episode of the Agency Leadership Podcast.

I’m Chip Griffin.

Gini Dietrich: I’m Gini Dietrich.

Chip Griffin: And it depends.