"Our Salesperson Used Our Showroom As A Party Space For Their Birthday!" - 09/18/19 Edition
Stephen Says Column

 Dear Stephen:

 
 I’m an HR specialist at a floor covering manufacturer down south. Occasionally I go online and look at some of our employee’s Instagram accounts. One in a million: I noticed one of our sales reps at our New York office appeared to be hosting a birthday party for herself in the New York showroom. It’s a beautiful space designed by a leading design firm, and our product was prominently featured in the photograph, along with a champagne glass in this girls’ hand (let’s call her Vanessa), as well a bunch of her friends in the background.
 
 Apparently, it was her 35th birthday.
 
 I was a little taken aback - first, Vanessa hasn’t been with us that long; second, we have liability issues in the showroom with entertaining guests after hours (say someone falls, or drops a glass, etc); and third, if one employee starts using the showroom as a catering space, they’re all going to start asking.
 
 It’s a small office and a small showroom. There’s no sales manager, and the salespeople report directly to corporate. I’m trying to decide how to discuss this with the employee without affecting her morale, but I know what she did is against our policy. How do I broach this problem? Should I?
 Signed,
 Party Pooper
 

 Dear Party Pooper:

 
 So many interesting points to your question. The whole social media today element allows you to “big brother” an employee in a way that they have created for themselves and not possible years ago. A carpeting, furniture or textiles showrooms does make ideal catering spaces. It goes without saying, with the nature of your business, these spaces are all beautifully designed, and they may offer decks and roof space as well.
 
 Over the years, I have heard of employees of furniture companies using their space for a party or special event
 not related to business. However, they always ask permission from whoever they’re reporting to. As with most cases in the interior products industry, there’s a huge crossover between social friends and clients, so any social media post could end up being a win-win situation between the manufacturer and the employee, so don’t poo-poo that. However, there are usually insurance liability issues that happen after hours. People do need to ask permission to do this. To post it on social media if it is not a work event is not well thought out for a number of reasons. It could be as simple as somebody you work with could see that they weren’t invited, or a customer might see the post and think, ‘Why wasn’t I there?’. Also, as you pointed out, other people at work would also want to use the showroom as their party space. Personally, when I leave work, I leave work. I certainly wouldn’t want to have my birthday party in my office, now as a recruiter, and even when I worked for
 a furniture company, I still would not want to have the party in the showroom I work from. Having a birthday party in a showroom would make me feel too much like I was having my birthday at NeoCon! No matter how you look at it is still a place of work.
 
 Here’s the answer to your question - you should immediately address it with this employee, morale aside. If they don’t like it, and they’re mad, and you think it’s going to affect their sales, then you have the wrong employee. It’s a place of business and it’s important that everyone who works there understands that using the space for a party is possible, but if certain protocol is not followed, you have complete anarchy when trying to run a sales division. The more I think about it, it’s pretty nervy for someone take over your space without permission. I hope they didn’t put the hors d’oeuvres and champagne on their expense account! 
 
 Stephen

 You can send your workplace questions to Stephen at: StephenSays@bellow.press
 
 Questions selected to be answered, will appear in this column. Please use the Subject: Stephen Says for all emails. Stephen Viscusi is a bestselling author, television personality, and CEO of The Viscusi Group, global executive recruiters located in New York. Follow Stephen on Twitter @stephenvicsuisi. Like Stephen on Facebook and follow him on LinkedIn.