Having to pay for work team building day

[Notanawayday]

Name changed for this.

I work part time for the NHS band 3 with colleagues who are band 6/7 so obviously better paid.

Every year we have no choice but to go on an afternoons team building day. Patient diaries are blocked out so my colleagues can go and admin have to attend too.

Last year it was bowling, year before pottery painting so not too expensive.

We have raised before about the trust we work for paying for us to go as it is on work time and we have no choice but to attend. Last year a couple of colleagues couldn’t afford the bowling had to sit there and watch.

There is no way our trust will pay for this forced team building day so there is no point even raising it again.

I was on annual leave last week when it was decided by our clinicians team lead that we will all be getting the train then a tube to Canary Wharf where we will be going to some sort of quiz event involving completing puzzles. Entry fee is £25 and then have to pay for food and drinks and of course train and fare tube which we can’t claim back. Whole cost will be around£60 and we will be there longer than our work finish time.

Im so fed up. I don’t want to spend money to attend a work team building day. A lot of the clinicians I work with are looking forward to it because it means half a day of not having to see patients and of course they earn way more than us lowly admin.

I think I will have to say I can’t afford to attend and will stay at work and actually do my job. I know already how it will pan out, constantly being pressurised to attend, being told I will have a good time and how I have to go to be part of the team etc etc

I’ve worked in further education and the civil service and never had to pay to attend a work team building day and yet the NHS managers think this is ok?!!!

I'm sure a huge proportion of the workforce would happily log into a laptop and process documents for 7.5 hours and never speak to a soul. My idea of dystopian hell but it takes all sorts

Oh... so they're not banned?

See the “unless they” part

If you are referring to the OPs department “team training” so far …. Just because something happened didn’t mean it wasn’t “banned”

No. Just no. Everything about this is wrong.
Patient care is being compromised (with the clinic closures reducing capacity).

The away-days sound like a 'jolly' with no actual benefits to staff involved or patient care.
The Trust are paying wages for staff to pottery paint or welly throw.

I am amazed senior management are agreeing to this......as a former NHS senior manager myself.
I'm sure there would be, quite rightly, absolute outrage if your local media found out about this.

Do you have a Whistle Blowing Champion? I would start there & I would also refuse to participate again. There will be work you can be doing despite the clinical staff being absent.

You really need to join a union.

Can you get together with your admin colleagues to agree to boycott this nonsense together? If there are several of you it will make it more difficult for them to pressurise individuals. Tell them you will organise your own team building local picnic or something.

If there's a business case for these events, then the business gets to pay for them, not the employees. That's obviously, surely?

I’m genuinely shocked that this happens in the NHS. I would totally understand a day of departmental time being blocked out for essential training or planning, but I’m stunned that clinics are closing for a day for things like bowling and quizzes.

If it’s a genuine team building/ training/ problem solving session, then there should be a training budget to pay for it.

Nobody should be paying their own money to attend a compulsory work event. They can’t force you to pay up, but events keep happening like this because people keep paying .

I would start saying that I couldn’t afford the event and would remain in work for the afternoon. High earners often don’t appreciate how tight the budgets of their lower-paid colleagues are.

If the clinicians are competitive, then they can go and play squash in their own time .

OP, what response did you get from your email yesterday?

Give ACAS a call.

How did it go

it never happened during the time I worked for the NHS.

Go to your union and get them to draft a letter to the management that you will not be attending any team building days unless they are funded and that they cannot require you to attend.

Would you be happier if everyone just monotonously sat at their desks / stood in their cubicles and work robotesque on exactly their tasks for no more than and no less than the specific times defined on their contract with no thought to or need for team cohesion or morale?

No, but then again we don't act like that where I work. By the very nature of working in social services, the work can't be carried out like that as things come up at the last minute, and you can't treat people in a robotic manner.

Working in an open plan office, with plenty of chatting & laughter (as long as it isn't interfering with the needs of the job). Some people go to lunch together, some discuss technicalities of the role, and monotony just doesn't exist.

But we also don't have things like mandatory fun team building with games days out that we have to pay for! Once a year we have a service day which is held off site usually in a different building, which comprises of the different parts of the teams ending up working together - much of our future direction and working practices are influenced by the results of this day. Travel costs, drinks and maybe a (very cheap) buffet lunch are provided.

We then have quarterly "state of the nation" type calls which again is always talks from various people about what's gone well/badly, new initiatives etc., which also has a large amount of time set aside for general questions etc. The entire team is around 160 people of all grades and half are based at each end of the county, so any more than those would be a nightmare to manage.

Each individual team has a fortnightly team meeting lasting 2-3 hours. Some staff bring in cakes & goodies that can be shared around the team, but there's never any expectation of that. Any left over cakes usually get donated to the admin team 😆

If any individual team wants to get together for a social reason e.g. like when one of my team mates left, or at Christmas, everyone's preferences are taken into consideration within our small groups e.g. for my team (admin) we are very careful about budget, there has to be a good vegetarian selection, must be central to the office area as we live every point of the compass around it. But the biggest teams are only about 8-9 people, and the team managers are very good at ensuring that everyone's needs are accounted for.

The NHS is said to be on its knees and people are waiting months for appointments. Surely clinicians shouldn’t be wasting paid time on this stuff.

This seems really unfair OP. I work in the Civil Service and there’s no way we’d get a company contribution to a team building event either so ours tend to be volunteering days. We choose a local charity and spend the day gardening, painting, sorting contributions etc. It doesn’t cost anything, it’s quite rewarding and we’ve always had a good day. Maybe something to suggest for next time but appreciate that doesn’t help just now!

How bizarre, the NHS are cancelling patients for this?!

Honestly. With people waiting for 9+ months to see a specialist they’re blocking out clinicians calendars for them to have a day out and they’re being rude to staff who don’t have spare money?

@Notanawaydayany update on the response to your email please?