No matter which side of issue you fall on, there are certain rules of behavior to follow at office party if you want to have an office to go to when party is over. When invitation arrives for holiday happening, make sure that you know answers to these key questions:

1. Do I have to go? Don't even consider NOT going unless you have a justifiable conflict. The office party is part of your job. Its purpose is to bring together coworkers and colleagues for a bit of camaraderie and some well-deserved recognition. If this is not your idea of a great time, then consider it work, put on your best attitude and go.

2. Do I need to know who will be there? Find out who else has been invited. If you assume that it is just your department or your work team, you may not be prepared to interact with everyone else. Any sort of mixing and mingling event requires advance preparation. Knowing who will be there and having an idea what to talk about is critical to a successful venture.

3. How long should I stay? Stay long enough to speak to everyone there - assuming there is not a cast of thousands. With a large crowd, interact with as many people as possible, especially key people like your boss. You need to remain at event for at least an hour or you will give impression that your appearance was merely obligatory.

If you are having a good time check your watch. Leave before party time has elapsed. If your invitation was from 5-7, don't stay one minute past 7 o'clock. You don't want to be thought of as part of clean-up crew unless that is next job you want to have.

4. What should I wear? Remember that this is office party, and keep your guard up when deciding how to dress. If event is immediately after work, your business attire is appropriate.

If party is later in evening or on weekend your choices will vary depending on type of event. If you aren't certain what to wear, check directly with your host or with coworkers whose taste and judgment you trust. Make sure that what you wear reflects well on you professionally. This is not time to show up in your most revealing outfit.

A Great Way to Do PR

As a business, non-profit or association manager trying to get a bang for your PR buck, you could pretty much concentrate on simple print and broadcast mentions or, for that matter, whole basket of tactical public relations weaponry including old favorites like high-visibility speech appearances and newsworthy special events.

But if you really want premium public relations results, you must use a broader, more comprehensive and workable public relations blueprint to alter your key, external audience perceptions – perceptions that lead to changed behaviors you’ll need to reach your managerial goals.

In short, you had best take steps to persuade those key external stakeholders with greatest impacts on your organization to your way of thinking, then move them to take actions that help your department, division or subsidiary succeed.

The PR blueprint is best place to start: people act on their own perception of facts before them, which leads to predictable behaviors about which something can be done. When we create, change or reinforce that opinion by reaching, persuading and moving-to-desired-action very people whose behaviors affect organization most, public relations mission is accomplished.

Publicity tactics, of course, have their role in blueprint, but they are not be-all or end-all of public relations plan, nor should they be.

Savor for a moment premium results like those mentioned above. Prospects starting to do business with you, and customers starting to make repeat purchases; fresh proposals for strategic alliances and joint ventures; welcome bounces in show room visits; rising membership applications, and community leaders beginning to seek you out; new approaches by capital givers and specifying sources, not to mention politicians and legislators viewing you as a key member of business, non-profit or association communities

But who will do work such results demand? People assigned by corporate office to your unit? Possibly your full-time public relations staff? Or even an outside PR agency team? No matter who they are, they must be committed to you, to PR blueprint and to its implementation, starting with key audience perception monitoring.

Sad to say, simply because someone describes him/herself as a public relations person doesn’t mean they’ve accepted PR as you understand it. So by all means make certain public relations people assigned to your unit honestly believe why it’s SO important to know how your most important outside audiences perceive your operations, products or services. Make sure they accept reality that perceptions almost always lead to behaviors that can help or hurt your unit.

Sharpen your plan – your blueprint -- for monitoring and gathering perceptions by questioning members of your most important outside audiences. Questions like these: how much do you know about us? Have you met our chief executive or other senior managers? Have you had other contacts with our staff and were you pleased with interchange? How much do you know about our services or products and employees? Have you experienced problems with our people or procedures?