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?!!!

Really? Someone should just find money they don't have spare just to attend this? It should absolutely be an option to say no thanks and attend work as normal.

that's a big hard no for me! And nhs to boot - where waiting lists etc are being impacted by these jolly's. If there is no training element these should be held out of working hours.

Will almost guarantee op is not the only one in the team hating these (especially as others have had to go and watch others due to a lack of funds)

You just need to say no and go to your place of work. They cannot legally make you do this. Madness

If a team building away day is considered part of training then its a tax deductible business expense for the organization concerned. When I was an academic the uni held these events - usually a day out to somewhere scenic where there were grounds to walk in and a meeting room. Lunch was provided and transport both ways for those of us who did not drive Most people went because they were within normal working hours and a change from teaching and research. In one uni we had evening events in a bar where we played business games with clients. Non alcoholic drinks were free but alcoholic ones had to be paid for which was fair enough.The uni paid for a taxi home for me because I was on a crap bus route .

I guess I’m saying that many people seem to enjoy it (it’s actually nice that the manager and other colleagues want to do things together!) and given it’s £60 and annual, just accept it and get on with it given there’s other problems in the world that are more pressing (that having to spend £60 getting to socialise when you should be working)

I'd pretend I was sick. Team building days are shitty enough without forcing you to pay for it yourself! It's particularly tone deaf in the current economic climate to force people to be spending £60+ pounds on something they don't want to do and has no value to their personal or professional life.

Unless it is specified in your employment contract, an employer can't legally force you to pay to attend a mandatory team building day. Just politely decline and suggest you do your usual work.

My advice would be to send an email to your manager stating that you can’t afford to attend the event so would like some direction on what tasks you can do in your workplace that day. If they approach you to discuss it in person ask them to respond to the email formally. It takes some guts but it sounds like you’ve already raised it as an issue so I think you can do it. As long as you’re not refusing to work then I don’t see how you can be penalised. Hopefully they ask you to do some filing / organising etc.

I think it’s against some sort of employment law to be honest but I’m not clued up enough to know for sure. It certainly is disgusting from your managers and I’m shocked reading it. I’ve been told I’m not a very nice person on a thread I wrote yesterday but things like this reassure me that I am because I couldn’t bare to hear someone tell me they couldn’t afford this and still forge ahead. Awful behaviour!

There should be an option to stay at work. The taxpayer should not pay for it, but if u do not wish to go u should be able to work. Years ago I had to attend the y11 prom . I had to pay. I could not understand how I was being asked to pay when essentially I was there to work

Yes but they shouldn't be compulsory to attend which I suspect OPs are.

I'm going to go slightly against the grain here. Whether you can afford it or not is a red herring. If work require you to attend something as part of work, then work needs to pay. It's a fairly basic principle.

Your employer is breaking the law by not providing potable water. If the piped water is not safe they're legally obliged to provide another source.

Sounds like a really good way to build a team - a team of disgruntled, pissed off workers who hate their bosses.

Honestly, what a load of crap. The "team building" the avoidance of work and the compulsory attendance and payment. I hope you can whistle blow this, it's wrong.

And if she doesn't have £60 to spare? What then?
Band 3 NHS isn't much above minimum wage.

You do know that you cannot be forced to do anything. Your manager is not going to plunder your bank account or physically carry you out of the office to the venue. What will happen if you gain the gumption to say no? Will the sky fall down on you?

You should not have to pay for a company team building day. I most certainly would not bother going.

I work in the NHS and have never heard anything like this. It seems inappropriate waste of NHS time and is entirely unfair to expect you to pay to attend something you don’t want to go to.

In our team when we do social events max a couple of times a year they are optional and outside of work time, and we as the consultant team split the cost, in addition to splitting the cost of Christmas hampers for our admin/nursing/ward/junior doctor teams. We don’t have to but we choose to.

@Notanawayday Just don't go and say you can't afford it.

“It was HORRIFIC but the clinicians loved it as apparently they are “very competitive”………evidently, these events are arranged by those who enjoy them with no thought for those on a lower pay band and having restricted funds. This is NOT inclusivity, it’s veiled coercive bullying in the form of ‘we are going to xxxx and you have all GOT to go too AND you have got to pay for yourselves!
I would be blowing the whistle on this OP.

OP .. In your email if you are sending one, work out the cost of your daily take home pay... and what per cent paying for this event will be, include all the travel and drinks etc.

If it turns out to be a large proportion of your daily take home.. then that will be quite a compelling fact to include.

Just to add that I have no quarrel with team building events, even in the NHS, if it improves how well they can all work together and communicate better then that is a good thing... and can boost morale, but the organisers ought to work out how to cover the cost,

They shouldn't be dictating, from the privileged position of being in the higher paid bands, how other employees spend their hard earned cash. They don't know or can't imagine what commitments and obligations other employees have. Whilst £60 for a high earner may be nothing, it could have a significant impact on those on lower pay. Its tone deaf and arrogant for them not to recognise that and causes resentment which actually defeats the whole purpose of having a work away day in the first place.

That’s not a team building day. That’s a jolly. The NHS shouldn’t be paying for your time to fuck around bowling or doing quizzes in Canary Wharf and you shouldn’t be paying for the ‘privilege’.

A legitimate team building day would normally feature mostly work related stuff - team effectiveness training, goal setting, managing the bottlenecks, development strategy, that sort of thing - and if that helps the team to be more more productive and professional then that’s a good use of time. They usually take place in a spare conference room or if you’re lucky an out of town Holiday Inn with the budget buffet.

Is there someone in charge who instigates this stuff or has it always been like this?

OP, this sounds disgraceful and you have every right to be annoyed about it. You certainly shouldn't be expected to pay for it yourself - especially if it isn't optional.

Is it worth writing to your MP?

I’d put my bottom dollar on most people not wanting to do it but feeling obliged to. Who wants to do all that random crap anyway instead of doing the job they’re actually paid to do?

I’ve worked in the team for about three years now and it’s always been like this. I was shocked my first Christmas there when I found out the clinic would shut down at 12 for the afternoon while we all went out for a Christmas meal the remainder of the day. It cost me around £45 I think!

There was no option to not go or work instead. Everytime someone leaves for a new job, goes on maternity etc we have an extra long lunch break and are forced to pay for cream teas or pizzas.

I have stopped contributing to leaving cards and collections. It is almost always clinicians at higher bands on good wages I am contributing too and I can’t afford it. I just ignored the emails that came round with the bank account and sort code I was meant to pay into.

This is very wrong, both from an employment law and use of public money (i.e. clinical time) perspective. It’s as though you’ve been transported to the 1980s when spending Friday lunch times in the pub was a thing.

Team events in the public sector should be either work (about work or working relationships and fully funded) or social (optional, unfunded).

I work in a NHS team that’s all over the country and mostly of home workers so we do have face to face overnight events a couple of times a year, but they are work-based and quite intense. Attendance at the events is not compulsory (sometimes people may be on leave for example), but it is expected. Travel is paid for and food and accommodation (pretty basic) are laid on, and any other social aspects are optional and paid for by the participants. The senior staff are usually quite generous in buying rounds and refusing reciprocation.

For Christmas and leaving dos everything is entirely optional, unfunded, and outside working hours, as it should be.

It sounds like there is a team building and cohesion element and that colleagues have an opinion on and decided what they want to do.

they’ve opted for something better they all have to contribute to rather than doing something shit just because it’s free.

It seems a fairly fair and democratic system noting, not everyone gets exactly what they want in a democracy. I mean, imagine if those that disagreed with what their taxes are spent on just decided they weren’t going to pay….. same concept.

Band 3 NHS admin here, this is appalling, you are under no obligation to attend at all, put your foot down and say no and stick to it. It doesn’t matter if your colleagues earn more, it’s not a work event that the NHS are paying for, you are well within your rights to say no.