Feeling a bit 'hmm' at these work rules...

[pickalilly1441]

Trying to be vague if I can, so please excuse any missing info!

Started a new job last year and absolutely loving it. I work in an off-shoot branch of a massive institution, where it's all very chilled out and relaxed (but we still work hard!) I am mid twenties, like most of our staff (bar the managers and some higher ups) and we all get on really, really well. My team works the closest with one other specific team, who are a bit younger (early to mid twenties). Since we're the same age and we work together the most, we've had parties, nights out, and dinners together. I saw no issue with this, though did always query why my manager didn't want to go but thought nothing of it, they're a parent and a commuter so appreciate nights out might not be their cup of tea. I'd really hate for them to feel left out or jealous, and I don't necessarily think this is the case because we do invite them every single time.

In a recent 1-1 we got chatting about my plans for an upcoming weekend, and when I mentioned I'd be going out with the other team, they cut the meeting short and asked me back into the office. They then had a sit down with our team and expressed concern over professional boundaries, appropriate behaviour etc. They have explicitly said that they do not think we should interact the way we do with the other team outside of work. Other members of my team were not happy with this, and said as much.

I see our manager's point; there have been occasions where drunken snogs, a barmy outside the kebab shop at 2am etc has come up at work, though it's always been laughed off and all is forgiven. If something more serious did happen, there is the potential that it would affect two teams rather than one.

There is also the issue of one of my colleagues being so infatuated with a member of the other team that HR actually had to get involved, though seemingly they are behaving in a more restrained, appropriate way now (hard to tell, I don't speak to them as much) - I see why my manager would be keen to avoid a repeat of this, but the blanket punishment method didn't work in primary school, and surely doesn't work now we are adults? Unsure how to unpick this finer detail in all honesty, as I do recognise it is a problem.

However, I also see my own side (obviously) and that of the other team, who were told the same thing by my manager, though not their own. They/we are of the opinion that what goes on outside of work hours is, within reason, our own business and cannot be dictated by managers, higher ups etc. I had a quick chat with HR whilst popping past, and they have largely echoed our thoughts, that our manager cannot decide who we do or do not spend time with outside of work.

Our manager has now doubled down, and whenever they spot us chatting to members of the other team outside of a meeting or when we have something else to do they ask us to return to our office. We can't even have lunch together anymore.

Feels sooooo petty and dramatic and like we're back at secondary school being separated from our friends, and I'm almost embarrassed to even bring it up with them at this point because we're working professionals, not children, but it is affecting both how we feel being essentially sequestered in our office at all hours of the day, but also how our team feels about our manager, who ordinarily is very relaxed and we love them. We're (my team+manager) going to a residential event in a few weeks with the other team and have been deliberately sat separately, our hotel rooms are floors apart, and our manager has asked us out for a drink in the evening (just to cover all angles!) so it appears really clear that communicating outside of work is a no-no now.

WWYD? AIBU to ask HR to have a word ahead of the event?

I would be careful. Long enough in the tooth to have seen these kinds of things backfire entirely. You only need someone to start a slagging match on WhatsApp about a manager and then the disillusioned stalker one to decide they hate you all and screenshot or record you and take that to management and then everyone gets fired. I am not kidding. I have seen large groups of 10+ employees fired in one go because of ‘bringing into disrepute’ or bullying claims from over friendly out of work relations. Just try to be a bit wise. Even being in a group and not saying anything won’t necessarily protect (if WhatsApp or Facebook group chat for instance).

I'd look for a new job.

During working hours, just work.

Lunchtimes and outside work is your time to do what you want.

Aslong as professional boundaries are kept and social behaviour doesn't affect the work environment nobody can say or do anything.

Managers can advise on behaviour outside work, but not really discipline you for it unless it strays into harassment or disrepute. But they CAN be aware of how behaviour outside the office is affecting your reputation and therefore your prospects and the teams reputation.

It's naive to think otherwise. Thinks aren't always black and white.

Do you drink at lunch? Pub lunches? Late back? Getting less work done because you are carrying on the banter/conversation? All things that are your managers concern.

Has socialising drifted into work time. If you are chatting for ages about nights out, love interest and scandals, is this during work time? Are people taking extended lunch hours to meet up?

I'd want a few boundaries at work and want to feel able to get my head down and focus on the job first. But I am not in my twenties!

Pretty sure it's moee acceptable solution to tell teams not to social after what I strkngly aaaume was sexual harrasment complaint than to have the subject of harassment feeling bad or not going because of the perpetrator.

It's most likely heavy handed for a reason

Sorry for typos. My keyboard goes mental sometimes!

Feels sooooo petty and dramatic and like we're back at secondary school being separated from our friends, and I'm almost embarrassed to even bring it up with them at this point because we're working professionals, not children

You're being treated like children because you’re acting like children! How embarrassing.

YABU and need to grow up. If you want to progress professionally, in this company or another, cut all of this out. It’s your work fgs.

I'm a lot older than you. I've worked in offices where people do exactly as you have described. There are several issues but one really awful one is that inevitably people have relationships that spill over into work. So, firstly you are just work mates/colleagues who like to socialise, then someone becomes involved with another, that might mean sexually/romantically or just very good friends. That relationship often causes them to behave differently at work, they might act inappropriately, or favour that person professionally, become involved in petty squabbles, take sides. All of that has happened in offices where I have worked. People who are in that relationship often don't see what they are doing until it's brought to their attention, which is what your manager is warning you about. It's about overstepping boundaries between work and your private life.
BTW , if any of your colleagues are not in your gang, it can get very tedious for them, they don't want to know about your last social event and who did what and to who. Neither do they want to have to deal with the fallout if things go wrong. They aren't jealous; they don't want to know.

When I was in my 20s and up to my early 30s there was always a fair amount of socialising with colleagues and sometimes at weekends too. I am in my 50s now and less inclined to socialise with colleagues but the younger ones still do and it all feels perfectly normal to me.

That said, there does seem to be a couple of problems with your team and this team, with the drunken snogging and fighting / arguing in public places outside work, this is never ok and in real life I have known people to be sacked because of it. But I think your employer should be tackling these incidents in isolation.

@CorvusPurpureus has hit it exactly on the head.

*Firstly, do not ever talk to HR when you're annoyed with your boss. Their principal purpose in the company is to find a legitimate reason to sack you if your manager wants you gone. They are NOT your friend. They work for your employer, not you.

Secondly, you're all 'unofficially' under scrutiny with a view to who might or might not be considered for promotion - the stories of you & your younger mates snogging & rowing outside the kebab shop will be percolating back. That would be a thing to distance yourself from, if you want to get on in the company. Call it a night at midnight if you're out with this crew, & save your wilder nights for non-work friends.

Thirdly, your manager is not feeling left out, or not coming out because they're a parent or a commuter. Your manager is pissed off at having to manage a team who are dragging their Club 18-30 behaviour into work.

Fourthly, the 'infatuated' colleague - well, it seems clear that they were harassing a work mate sufficiently for HR to act. That is not just 'oh Adam is very grumpy because Chloe said no thanks, & he's gone home to sulk'. That's HR level harassment involvement. This is 'woah people are complaining to HR about incidences of harassment taking place on nights out.'

If you're a professional, then you can discreetly swing upside down from a lamppost with a bunch of begonias up your bottom most weekends. With your non work mates.

If your weekend activities are being talked about disapprovingly by HR, then you are not compartmentalising like a professional. You are just one of a group of VERY unprofessional idiots gossiping about fighting, snogging, & nicking each others' chips, with a side order of associated sexual harassment.

It's not a great look.*

I can’t stress enough the point that you are all unofficially under scrutiny with the view to progression. None of you are doing yourselves any favours and this carry on will have consequences. Sure, you may ‘win’ if you go and complain and you all continue with this behaviour out of work - that carries over into work with banter and discussion and trips to HR about harassment, but trust me you will ‘lose’ as you have sabotaged any opportunity for progression.

Your manager is pissed off at having to manage a team who are dragging their Club 18-30 behaviour into work.

That's pretty much it in a nutshell.

The socialising, lunches, friendships are all fine - if they were contained within boundaries & recognising a work / personal life distinction. This hasn't happened.

The management approach is heavy-handed but the whole culture & atmosphere has got out of control & I suspect they are trying to address it firmly now.

If you don't like it you need to look for another job. It all sounds v immature and unprofessional behaviour. You don't seem to be able to keep it out of the workplace so it's not really on.
They can't really dictate that you don't see these colleagues but I'm sure your boss is concerned about the reputation of their business/company.

Surely it's far better for people to snog members of other teams rather than member of their own teams??

To avoid awkward issues of it both going wrong but also the power dynamic if it keeps going.

Well if you behave like children, that's how you'll be treated. Sounds like poor behaviour.

agree - if you (general, not you personally, OP) can't keep things professional at work, then your management have to take measures.

You're all young - i suppose us old fogies are too uptight to be able to give you advice about how to learn to navigate professional relationships, so they need the stick method rather than carrots.

I absolutely would not approach HR about not being able to sit together at a work event. Your leadership team will be responsible for anything that happens and it does sound sensible they've separated you given all the wild partying that has taken place. There is no one on my team under the age of 31 and our MD still gets worried about the Christmas dinner and makes a point of saying "the official party has ended now, the tab is closed" - that is code for clear off, I don't want to know about not am I responsible for what happens now!

By all means see each other out of work, but I'd refrain from discussing team members/managers as a group (especially in writing), and when in work just get your head down and show your focus is on your work and not your social life.

To be honest you lost me in your schoolgirl speculation as to why your manager doesn’t come out when you commented “I'd really hate for them to feel left out or jealous, and I don't necessarily think this is the case because we do invite them every single time.” To be clear, the reason your manager does not come out has nothing to do with their being a parent or a commuter, it’s because they are maintaining a healthy professional boundary. Throughout your OP you seem to not recognise professional boundaries - your chat with HR being one.

Like other posters, I’ve seen first hand the damage relationships outside of work can cause inside of work. I worked somewhere where there was a team who were very close, and were at the centre of the post work drinks culture, with a very tight clique extended to a privileged few in other teams. They recruited on the basis of who they thought would fit in their gang, with a very quick turnover when new recruits realised how dysfunctional the team was costing god knows how much in recruitment. Eventually two of them went for the same promotion, which was poorly handled by their Director, and the politics emanating from the fall out over which one got it had a huge impact on other teams. They also had a WhatsApp group which was used to slag off others in the organisation, and a colleague found themselves a victim of that through the inevitable gossip mill. That became another issue for our management to resolve when they rightly put in a bullying complaint and further made internal relationships difficult.

What struck me in your OP was that you seem to perceive the relationship your team has with the other as being successful because you socialise together. Successful working between teams has nothing to do with going down the pub, it’s down to things like internal culture, good leadership and fostering collaboration. Agree with the other poster who suggests the heavy handed approach is to do with them firmly trying to sort things out. That’s actually a good thing.

I don’t think your manager is handling the problem as well as they could. It strikes me that you have a bit of a leadership personality - you’re taking the lead on this issue to an extent.

But you’re thinking about this through the lens of school, and honestly talking about it as some kind of group punishment is a bit childish. I understand where you’re coming from. But I want to point out where you’re going as well.

If you want to move up in this company, or in another you have to be able to think about issues from the perspective of a manager, and from a whole company perspective. (You might prefer to stay near the bottom of the company hierarchy and focus your leadership potential through a union and that’s a valid choice too)

But if you take on a crusade to HR, undermining your manager, and fighting for the right to partyyyy you’re going to stand out in a way that will do you no favours. And some of your colleagues, will encourage you but happily let you take the flack. And in a few years you’ll be wondering why people with half your potential are doing better than you. And the party spirit will have long since dissipated.

What I would suggest is that you talk to your manager, acknowledge that there’s a problem and point out that there’s a big effect on morale and try and work towards a solution. They’re probably in a position where they’re getting pressure from the higher ups to sort it out (and if it’s an international company the expectations might not be HR compliant in the UK) and getting pushback from the team and more than likely feeling thoroughly shit about the whole thing. Be part of the solution instead of the problem.

Your manager can't dictate who you socialise with outside of work hours obviously but they do have a say if it interferes with the workplace, and from your description it obviously does but you don't seem to see that for some reason. If you want to continue socialising with this team outside of work do but stop organising it on work time, stop talking about it (reliving it) on work time and that includes during lunch if you have lunch on the premises, treat it as completely separate to work as you would any nights out with other people. Work have demonstrated that they are uncomfortable with it so hear them. Part of the issue might also be the reputation of the company if you are rowdy on your night out and it is obvious you all work for the same company that reflects badly on the company whether it is outside work hours or not.
I would imagine separating you all at the hotel is because they don't trust you all to behave professionally in the group when drinks are had, so prove them wrong and do

Your work can’t tell you who you can socialise with out of work however it does sound like you are minimising the trouble it’s causing at work. So much so your normally chill boss has had to put their foot down.
You also sound very childish, complaining that you feel like you are back at school, while behaving like you are at school. I have to deal with all this shit at work myself, it’s annoying and time consuming having sort out so and so not working well with so and so because they called them a bitch the night before.

@luckylavender

Why do you need to quote the entire (lengthy) OP? Just reply. We know what you're replying to - it's the opening post in the thread, after all.

It's so annoying when posters quote the OP.

I’ve met some of my best friends at work and finding like minded people you get on with at work is a blessing. I will say though you need to bare in mind : do you friendships appear clique-y to those who you work with but who don’t go on these nights out? Do you discuss /moan /compare work situations on these nights. If your colleague did something wrong would you be able to raise it with them or their line manager? It’s tough when the boundaries are greyed.

This all sounds more like being at college than work.
Bosses making seemingly petty rules are never popular, but you all need to grow up.