How often are you asked for money at work?

[ElderAve]

Where I work it seems to be constant, in theory it's all voluntary, but we get a lot of reminders and expressions of disappointment if insufficient is collected.

It's things like:

Charity dress down days
Birthdays - big ones for the entire staff, every year ones for the immediate team
Flowers for anyone off sick for more than a week or two
Flowers for anyone bereaved
Charity donations in memory of deceased parents
Leaving gifts
Donations in lieu of Christmas cards
Secret Santa
Other fundraising events

The Charity ones, the boss will set up a just giving page and make one donation on behalf of the organisation, so she knows what's been given by whom and will send reminders as she sees necessary.

Same with birthdays, I'm on the leadership team and she will buy a present for each member and tell us what we owe (which is better than me having to buy the present, I accept )

Usually these things are organised by a colleague and easy enough to ignore but this is all coming from the top with significant pressure.

The most recent one is a donation in memory of a colleague's father. She's a good colleague, a friend, I'd never met her father but it's a good charity I don't have any problem supporting but I've had 4 reminders in 4 days!

I think I'm fairly generous with charity and as a senior member of staff I can afford it, not everyone can. It's the demands I object to and I also feel for those for whom this presents a real problem.

OTOH there's no way to raise this without looking miserable and tight.

Very rarely - they prefer charitable donations to go through something like Just Giving, and we don’t have many requests (in our department, anyway.) There is a charity matching scheme if you do raise funds. It's more likely to be requests for time, join a litter pick, help out with a school STEM club and so on. (They also match time donated.)

We tend not to do collections for birthdays - birthday person should bring in cakes. Nor do we often have leaving collections after thete were so many went in a round of redundancies a few years back that we couldn't keep up.

Code of conduct strongly discourages cash collections for anything. I suspect someone may have defrauded a collection at some point, as they didn't used to be quite so strong on it.

Once every 2 months or so? Usually someone leaving or big birthday

I gave £2-5 each time but Tbf as the most junior member of staff I assumed that was ok because they paid me £17k. Have moved to a new job 4 weeks ago and had none yet - and they pay a lot more

There is a lottery syndicate but not everyone has chosen to join. And someone normally does a Grand National/ Euro/World Cup sweepstake.

Definitely forbidden with us, any gambling. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen, but has to be kept quiet and theoretically outside the office.

Almost never. An annual gift for our department administrative assistant. Collection for flowers or a fruit basket if someone In department has cancer or similar.

We get these emails, someone's leaving/getting married/having a baby but tbh, I only give if I want to. If not I don't bother, nothing has been said so far!

We never did birthdays or secret santas (only for kids in my opinion) and no one lost a parent or was ever sick for that long! No one did charity things - maybe the odd sponsored walk/marathon and some one's kid doing the same (really resented the latter as I'd barely know the parent and thought the whole point was the child to get sponsors). I think the only contribution was if someone left, which happened infrequently.
As for the charity contributions I would just tell my boss (or whomever) that I already give to several charities by direct debit. And I'd only do wedding birthday bereavement etc etc if I was close to the person and if so might well say that I had arranged my own present/card/flowers.

Hardly ever. I'm not in the UK, most places I have worked the employer will pay for gifts and morning tea for anyone leaving or going on mat leave. We do have secret Santa but it's a fairly low cost (more like a joke gift than a serious one). Occasionally some will do fundraising but it's low key and there is no pressure at all.

We have collections for big birthdays, weddings, babies, leaving and bosses Christmas presents.

Everyone puts in what they want, or even nothing.

Probably about three times a year plus Christmas.

This was an issue for someone I know, constant appeals.
She allocated 20 a month and when it was gone, it was gone.
She was not embarrassed to say "sorry, my office fun is already used".

No one commented on it either.
I think that was a good way to go.

Allocate whatever amount you feel comfortable per month and don't engage further with requests.

Hardly ever in my civil service job - just a collection if someone leaves, and paying for our Christmas do, and even then it's not mandatory to go. In a previous private sector job, it did seem like we were being asked for a couple of quid for birthdays etc every other day. It annoyed me - you could opt out, but everyone would know who had and hadn't contributed. You weren't allowed to sign the card if you hadn't made a donation!

There is always a collection for something (people leaving and for charity) where I am. I work from home, as do many others, so they overcome this with PayPal donations.

I've had calls to say I haven't donated in the past. I tell them that's correct and I'm not going to.

If and when I leave, I expect and want nothing in return. I work for the money to benefit my family and not some random who is leaving or some charity I wouldn't donate to anyway.

We do collections for our team on special events like engagement, marriage, birth of a baby, moving on to another job, etc. Our immediate team is only 12 people though so it's not too often. The department does an annual collection for the cleaner at christmas. And if someone is retiring, that will usually go through the entire department for collections. For charity stuff, we generally only have a £1 donation on christmas jumper day, then bake sales etc that you can chose to participate in if you wish, and sometimes people are doing sponsored walks etc, but again, an email just goes around and you can donate if you wish.

All of the above is completely voluntary and pressure free though. Nobody is going to know or care if you chose to just sign a leaving card and not stick some money in if you are skint, or feel you don't know the person well enough to bother. I tend to only put money in if its my own team.

I think I'm fairly generous with charity and as a senior member of staff I can afford it, not everyone can. It's the demands I object to and I also feel for those for whom this presents a real problem.

If you genuinely want to address it without appearing tight, this is the line you should take. If you’re senior, presumably you have the chance to put views forward? You can be honest and say you can afford but but you are concerns others can’t and that the pressure is unfair. Then suggest a better way of doing things.

Call me tight but I wouldn’t take part in this.

Luckily at my workplace we don’t do this. I don’t get paid enough as it is to then hand money out to people I’ve never met or charities. I have to scrimp on things each month as it to support my family.

Special events only for us, and nobody is pressured. I’m happy to put in a fiver or tenner or so as it’s not very often: marriages, arrival of a baby, round birthdays, recovery after serious illness, and we’re a very small department. Plus I like our team immensely.

All the time! I only contribute to special events now as it got a bit ridiculous.

At one point we were asked to pay for a persons holiday to Dubai for her 60th b'day. After the holiday had been booked.

Small team of 7, we give £10 for every event, not every birthday but “0” birthdays, weddings of colleagues or colleagues children, birth of a child or grandchild, leaving, bereavement or sponsorship.

It never feels like too much, maybe 4 events max one year then one the next.

Hardly at all - significant birthdays, weddings and babie, retirements. Not sure about long term sick, no one in my team has been long term sick since I have been in post.

That’s all in my immediate team of 14, retirements for senior staff do get a wider email round but I wouldn’t contribute unless I knew them. I’ve never felt obligated to give anything or even give a particular amount within my own team.

Holy fuck - pay for some bint's holiday to Dubai!

Outrageous

omg its a nightmare theres always someone in an office walking around banging a tin

IMO unless its a big birthday or someone i actually know is retiring im not interested and will quite clearly announce i am not interested

In my current job it's pretty frequent. Obviously people can't help when they are born but January is notoriously cash-strapped, and in the past two weeks there has been a collection for a 30th and a 50th, another colleague has just had a baby AND they want to arrange a birthday lunch at £15pp.

At least it's also my 30th in a few months so I can recoup my costs

Never, everyone works from home so we don't do any charity dress ups etc. Leaving gifts, illness things, x amount of years worked gifts, other miscellaneous gifts are all bought by the company.

Charity - we do around 2 cake sales per year but we are a company with a very sweet tooth and there is just a box next to the cakes and whoever wants to donate can do so. Similar with Christmas Jumper day.
We have the odd colleague doing a charity run and they may provide a JustGiving Page but I know for sure that’s totally private and the company is not doing anything to promote it.

Birthdays - nothing, most people buy cake or sweets for the teams and often the teams may go out for a drink or lunch. If it is a big one people from the team will get a card and let it go round but no gift.

Collections are for leaving dos, babies and marriage. Flowers for bereavement or long-term illness come from HR.