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 wouldn't say anything to anyone but ring in with a migraine on the day . Life is too short for this nonsense.

Are you being deliberately obtuse? Who is she forcing to change? She's not stopping them from going. She does not have £60, she does not want to go, and she should not have to spend her own money on a work related event. Any one of these is a valid enough reason not to go to a poxy quiz in works time.

It is a myth the public sector salaries are behind private nowadays

Hands up who thinks team morale will be raised by this ridiculous event? I can’t see many of the Band 3 staff raising their hands.

I would feel a migraine coming.

What ever you are paid you shouldn't be forced to this arrangement.

You sound like the typical complainer who does the absolute bare minimum and doesn’t give a shit about their job then….
…..complains when their employer gives them the bare minimum and doesn’t care about them.

wonder where that came from? 🤔

why would anyone do a job or work anywhere they don’t like? Life is too short.

if the employer cared about them they wouldn't be forcing them to pay for activities they didn't want to do

And you sound like a typical manager who doesn't actually give a tin shit about their staff. No-one should be paying to attend compulsory events in work time. I guarantee, if you are a manager, you are loathed.

I'm retired now, when I was working I took great pleasure in paying for my teams Christmas lunch. Sorry if that doesn't fit your narrative.

Firstly, you're wrong. And secondly, your statement is irrelevant to the conversation.

You see, I am a manager (I’ve a team of about 150 so fairly sizeable) and as far as I’m aware, I’m liked (I’ve better recruitment and lower attrition than elsewhere in the business). That because I also do things such as pay for drinks and pay for Christmas dinners alongside the usual encourage, develop, promote my staff.

That’s because I see having to pay for those things as costs of employment (yes it’s nice to be able to do but fundamentally, it’s part of the job). I see it as being no different to OP having to pay to go on a team social / development day.

Yes, per the letter of the law, she doesn’t have to but for the benefit of the team and herself, she should as its part and parcel of the job.

of course we can have a race to bottom arguing about what’s the bare minimum someone needs to do for their job and the absolute maximum an employer should be asking of their employees, but it’s the workplace a much better place if there’s flexibility both ways and people actually enjoy what they do and who they do it with? I just don’t get why anyone would ever want to do something in a team for an employer, any of which they don’t like.

Are you round the fucking bend?!

that's outrageous and bad management. please raise it formally with a trade union. and preferably with a few of you so you are not singled out. clinicians earn more and i don't know who's decidding what to do but if it's work time you absolutely should not be paying for anything more than you would on a usual day of work (ie your packed lunch and a tea bag ). how awful. Raise it. don't go. bnut don't be alone if you can - get some solidarity

madness. maybe if it's your own company and you want to pay people because you getr a tax refund or soemthing. this person seems to live on another planet. of course its not normal that people spend £60 when they are on crap pay to start with.. and have to spend that amount of money to be with their work colleagues, not friends, family, neighbours, loved ones.. this is like a parallel universe.

I HATE this kind of thing - it’s absolutely not inclusive and I’m positive there’ll be other people who feel like you.

I used to work for a big national (private) firm. Household name.

Every year they did a compulsory team building event. I have severe anxiety and asked to be excluded - said I was happy to work instead, offered to take a day’s leave. No, HR were adamant I had to attend.

Except I was badly injured - ended up in hospital and had to have a week off work. My manager went apeshit at HR and the following year, it was no longer compulsory.

Not all people can pick and choose a job in 2026.

It’s not a race to the bottom.

Me again! You're still not getting it. She doesn't want to go and she shouldn't have to go but the one thing you have not commented on is the fact she says she can't afford it. A full time NHS Band 3 job pays £25,760 to £27,476 and OP says she's part time so £60 is a lot of money. If the manager wants everyone there then the manager should pay for it.

Surely someone opting to work part time on that remuneration package must have alternative sources of finance? You can’t equate salary to disposable income.

I’m retired now but do private sector companies still do these or has it largely been accepted that most people hate them (even when they are paid for) and they never achieve much anyway?

I remember working at one company where all the staff went out and built a wall at one of those charity day things. When they came back one woman was really worried because she didn’t think the wall was safe. I said it would have been better all round if everyone had just stayed at work and we all chipped in to pay a professional bricklayer to build the wall for the charity.

It doesn’t matter what salary someone is on or what their disposable income is. They shouldn’t be compelled to pay for what is effectively a work related event.

Erm nope.
Meet them at the station and tell them you do not have a ticket. Decline to pay for ticket and do not cave.
This is not in your contract (I presume) so they cannot make you pay for it.

It’s frightening to think that expectmore is an NHS manager, if her claims are true of course. To say that people who “opt” to work part time must have money coming in via other routes is, well I’m speechless.

I have two year old twins and some months wonder how the hell I’m going to pay the nursery bill. I go to work to earn money not spend £60 of that money on a jolly I can’t afford to attend and wouldn’t choose to attend even with friends.

Throughout my time I have paid out for people leaving, people getting married, people having a baby, people turning 50, people turning 30 and on and on. Most of them clinicians on a much higher wage than me and my admin colleagues. At one point we all paid for a gift for a consultant who left only for him to come straight back to work on the staff bank!

I have paid for compulsory lunches, £8 each towards pizza I didn’t want to eat, £10 for a fish and chips, £5 for a cream tea all without complaint. And people like expectmore think that’s perfectly reasonable. I have band 2 colleagues who can barely make it through the month on their low wage also forced to contribute to all this.

It is easy for people to say just don’t contribute they can’t make you and yes up to a point that’s true, however the atmosphere when you don’t pay is awful. The constant emails about giving x an “amazing” send off sent by a clinical lead when it is their member of staff and not an admin person’s responsibility to pay towards them! The “I still haven’t had contributions here is my bank account again”.

I have had managers stand by my desk asking why I don’t want to go bowling during work time, pressure put on me with the constant “you’ll enjoy it when you go” brigade. Unless you work in that culture it’s hard to understand how exhausting it is. The anxiety when another email pings through about a whole day event where you will be in teams competing in sports activities.

I just want to go to work and do my job!!

"I still haven’t had contributions here is my bank account again”.

You need to be more assertive. It's difficult but imo is an essential life skill.

Look them in the eyes and firmly say 'I have children to feed and bills to pay. I cannot afford to contribute'
Then keep eye contact and do not speak again until they do.
If they keep pushing you then repeat back
'I have children to feed and bills to pay. I cannot afford to contribute'

Once you learn to be more assertive people will stop trying to walk all over you.

I also agree it's madness.
We have to attend one next month and whilst there's no cost involved we normally only have to go into the office once a month which is a 70 mile round trip and with this extra day involved it means another 70 mile round trip and I thought this was bad enough ! It's not too bad for me as I drive but some people already have 2-3 hour long train rides to come into the office once a month and now in October they have it twice.

@Notanawayday it sounds horrendous. I worked almost exclusively in the private sector and there always seemed to be a lot more appreciation of the fact the colleagues at the lower end of the salary scale wouldn’t be expected to pay for team meals out etc If the manager wanted to take the team out they would pay. If it was a work event in work time there would be no question of anyone paying anything.

But I do think these team building events definitely seemed to lessen in the last few years of my working life. I think in the public sector they think we need to be doing the same things they are doing in the private sector……but the private sector has long since moved on.