Today I work for a different company, and we had one of these events you are talking about. I actually had just as much fun, if not more fun, than the previous lavish parties I was used to. I feel like I have a much more personable relationship to at least a half-hour other people I normally don't interact with on a day-to-day basis.
It's what you make of it. If not showing up for you is working, rock on man. If enjoy an opportunity to get to know everyone I work with and find out what we have in common.
1) make it super interesting but excuse the family-types who instead take time off.
2) remove the party bit and make it an extra-curricular commitment perhaps giving-oriented like community service.
Mandatory Happiness belongs in one of the circles of hell.
* I'm a software engineer. I'm already highly-paid, so the marginal hedonic impact of a nice party is relatively small compared to its monetary cost.
* I'm nerdy, and prefer quiet, small, get-togethers centered around an activity, compared to large, loud, alcohol-fueled parties.
* Holiday parties are often in the evening, requiring me to schedule time for a work activity in typical non-work time. Community Service is often most reasonably performed in the day, making it an alternative activity during the workday.
* As a highly-paid engineer, I'm aware of differences in luck and circumstance that led to my current good fortune - giving back to the community has a relatively notable hedonic impact.
* As a software engineer, most of my work is non-tangible and abstract - I basically talk to a non-person, all day. Many types of community service involve physical labor, repairing or constructing a physical thing/place. This taps in to some core desire of humans, and thus also has notable hedonic impact.
* Community Service is good PR, for both the company and employee. Holiday parties risk negative PR, either for drunken scandals, visions of gilded-age excess, or both.
* The money that _could_ be spent on alcohol, catering, venue, DJs, and apparently modeling talent, I'd rather see spent on more direct benefits for employees - snacks, educational materials/career development, or just plain raises.
So, yeah, I would definitely consider the perks of working for a company that advertised that it did _not_ host large holiday parties, spent the budget elsewhere, and organized community service events.
Models are loads of fun
'non mandatory employee engagement' is generally how HR describes these sterile lifeless get-togethers. This inevitably gets translated into "i strongly encourage my team to attend" by management, which in turn results in every H1B employee showing up in cringing terror of being fired while every salaried non-exempt engineer and programmer brace for the inevitable "so, i didnt see you at the party last week!" from their manager.
Save the time and effort. split the budget for this dumpster fire masquerading as a social event, and add it to my raise.