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?!!!

Freedom to speak up. Each trust has FTSU guardians. I would absolutely refuse to go. Just don’t turn up , I didn’t attend a so called ‘mandatory’ team building day. Nothing was said.
I think it’s disgraceful they are doing this in what should be patient facing time. I’m amazed that’s been allowed.
Also , very shortsighted of your colleagues in higher bands to assume everyone can afford it.

I would just refuse to go.

Just say you can’t afford to attend and that you’ll go into work instead.
I wouldn’t even get the train and watch etc.

I would speak to some of your colleagues and tell them your plans.
Hopefully others will do the same and then none of you will feel so guilty.

There is a choice though , something like this would not be in your contract. You need to speak to HR and join a union.

Don’t apologise. Something like “ I cannot afford to pay for this event. I will attend work as usual”.

Although it’s outrageous you are being put in this position. Truly useless management. This seems to be the problem with the NHS.

I don't see why these "compulsory but the staff pay" events need to exist at all and I doubly don't see why they should happen in work time. Throughout my working life (NHS) the teams I was in managed to be both friendly and productive without them. Its my experience as both a manager and a clinician that teams are not built by such timewasting nonsense but by everyday interaction and behaviour.
I would definitely be cancelling such events happening when staff should be working, especially staff in the public sector.

I would not put this is writing.

As I said upthread, while I get that a higher earner will always be earning more, its not just a question of being a higher earner. People have different private lives and different levels of disposable income, also that can vary even month to month. I don't think its ever reasonable to assume that people can afford things whatever their income.....unless of course the person concerned is Elon Musk!!

why not?

@godmum56 this is a really good point. I have never met the medical people that our team provides services for, occasionally we speak on the phone and some of them are lovely and some of them not so much, like everyone else. Our job is to provide a service to the public which we can do perfectly adequately without being besties with the clinical team. Some in team bonding at our own level would be helpful- and the occasional appearance of a supervisor or manager but that’s another story - but isn’t going to happen because we need to keep the phone lines answered.

No , you’re right. No one should have to pay for this rubbish.

I'd go further with that and say that no one ever needs to be besties with any of their work colleagues. A good mutually respectful working relationship, absolutely and yes people do find friends, sometimes lifetime friends, through their employment, but in no way is it essential and can cause its own problems in terms of tribalism.

We are all with you OP
You got this
STAND FIRM AND DO NOT YIELD!

Your calculation is wrong. You’re comparing a yearly cost (£60) with a monthly net income.

it would be better to compare against the annual net income which would put it as £60/ (£1200*12) =0.4%…. So: still far from being a large percentage…..

also, £1200 per month on £100 per day means you only work 12 days?

@Notanawayday You do not have to pay a single penny towards any of the things you have mentioned. Just be firm, and anything that happens after the email write it all down, this will be escalated and there will be some interesting meetings with some of the staff.

Do not pay a penny.

And when you win the lottery and your twins are adults earning half a million each, which they give to you as rent, and you’re still working part time, a) that’s no one’s business and b) you still don’t have to pay a single penny.

You have a lot of support, please be confident about your right to say ‘no’ to all of these things.

This is awful and not how decent workplaces operate. Yes collections where people usually put £1 in but no pressure to contribute. Yes Christmas lunches but no one is forced to attend.

I strongly suspect Management are bending the rules about “team building events”. They are dressing up social events as official work events but needing attendees to fund as it’s not part of the budget (quite rightly).

The pressure being applied by senior managers to attend social events is potentially heading into bullying territory.

When your Clinical Team Lead approaches you ask them where in your T&Cs or staff handbook does it state it is mandatory for you to attend and pay for social events. if they say it’s team building then ask where does it say employees have to fund official team building events.

My advice is to talk to ACAS and then as a pp said use the speak up scheme to raise as an issue. The question is are these official team building events which should be funded or are they social events which are voluntary attendance.

For me an annual 1/2 day of working time for Christmas lunch is not unusual. Having a slightly longer lunch in the office where people bring food in for leavers is not unusual. Proper Team Building events are not unusual,

Repeatedly granting paid working time for social events that are dressed as team building is getting close to fraud. People always get horrified if you use a word like fraud as it suggests you have stolen £££. Fraud is much simpler than that.

From what you have said a clinical session (1/2 a day) is being cancelled and the time used for “team building” but in reality it’s for social events. If you add up 1/2 a days gross pay, employer NI, employer pension contributions for the whole team it’s a significant sum of money out of the staff budget. This is not what the staff budget is for. Ultimately this is tax payers money.

Absolutely correct. I was part of investigating a staff member for fraud for a similar thing. She would regularly arrive late and leave early and would falsify this by lying about her arrival and departure times in the fire safety register....not too bright though because of course in a paper register you can see when people signed in by the people who signed in before and after them. It didn't go to court because the amount she had defrauded the NHS of was quite small and when faced with a disciplinary she resigned.

Outrageous

I work in the private sector and we've sometimes had self-funded teal socials but a) these were not compulsory "training" and b) were paid for by the senior people, not those on lower salaries.

Your employer will not pay for your commute, (if they did then HMRC would consider it a taxable benefit)
But ADDITIONAL expense above your standard home to workplace commute is claimable / fundable

No. You are missing the point.

they nor any employee should be expected to pay for a social activity in working hours.

its completely tone deaf for a company or manager to think otherwise. People get to choose what they spend their money on.

I hope it went ok.

most of us understand where you are coming from. I hope it was received well at work

This is the very opposite of team building - it’s excluding part of the team. Please raise this. Our team building days are a few hours in a nice park with everyone bringing a dish and then maybe a quiz or a board game in teams. Cheap and cheerful but everyone can join in.

But clinical staff ARE more important in the NHS surely? This idea that we are all of equal worth and importance when it comes to work is bollocks. (Not talking about values as a human being of course).

Doesn't give them a free pass to be ducks though.

@topcat2014

i think the problem us there doesn’t seem to be a genuine team culture. It seems more master and servant. The admin staff are there to serve the clinical staff. Whilst they may be in a supporting role they shouldn’t constantly be made to feel inferior.

Just say no, you’re an adult. What will they do, sack you? Or physically carry you out of the office? Fraudulently take money from your bank?

Will they balls! Just say no, you can’t afford it and even if you could you’d rather eat a packet of wet wipes.