Team building days- do you hate them?

[Stressedgiraffe]

Inspire by a thread.
Why is there so much hate about team building days?
I've attended loads and organised some.
Usually they are ok, even fun sometimes but I've been lucky and generally like the people I work with. Some when I don't really like the team have been horrible.
I've got a team building event next week and will be doing everything that everyone seems to hate : travelling on the bank holiday to get there. 6 hours travel time. Staying in a hotel for 2 nights. 2 day team building . Travel 6 hours back.
But I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully it'll be fun.
So I guess my aibu
Aibu- team building is ok even fun!
Ainbu- team building is the spawn of the devil and all should be banned!

our “team building” days aren’t compulsory, they normally involve doing something fun eg golf fang, pottery painting etc then involve food and drink .

its just a day for whoever wants to get together to go out , relax and have fun, sometimes management go sometimes they don’t. It’s basically just a day out.

I’ve been to some, I’ve declined others.

Depends.

I quite like the meal and inevitable piss up (on overnight ones), and my best work relationships have been built half cut in the hotel bar.

The team building activities, not so much. I did once go to one which had communal drumming, that was good (despite sounding cringe). Otherwise, dreadful, to be endured.

I suspect the employee knows all too well what the company culture is, since two of these wankfests have been arranged for her days off. And how much do these "external facilitators" know about said company culture?

Some people are miserable! Work is as good a place as any to make friends and build relationships. Having said that I'd rather not travel on a BH to attend a pointless task. But something fun you can do as a team like punting in Cambridge or a pub walk or even a day volunteering as a team sound great to me.

There's a big difference between making friends at work and forced teaming, though.

Agree with pp. I work with a team of very agreeable people. But I'm an introvert in a customer facing role so the tank is empty after an 8 hour shift and I just want to go home and watch telly. I'm also shy, and a lot if my team are loud and outgoing, so I end up listening a lot and not saying anything.

My boss is keen on these things, usually a picnic. I swap shifts to avoid them. There's no obligation to attend if you're not on shift though.

It's the "forced fun" aspect that's the worst. My version of fun is reading, or going to a museum, not doing "team building" games and spending time with people who are, yes, nice, but not the sort I would choose to spend with.

This this and more this

Achieving the things in your first paragraph doesn’t require a team building event though does it? Just good management / leadership and networking surely?

Most ‘team building’ events are forced, and perpetuate the myth that someone has to ‘lead’, resulting in either chaos or hilarity.

I’ve been on some very enjoyable ones - most memorably being flown to Cairns (I thought they’d said Cannes, and was quite looking forward to that!) staying in a beautiful resort hotel and going whitewater rafting then snorkelling at the barrier reef. But I can’t remember any of the ‘team building’ events or the content of the week at all. It didn’t change the teams approach to work one iota, as the team was already performing well. By the time we’d all taken 2 days off to make up for travelling impacting our weekend, , plus then inevitable jet lag effect, we were unproductive for a fortnight!!

The most fun one has been taking over the Rick Stein cookery classroom and having half a day of preparing, cooking and eating delicious seafood, washed down with copious amounts of nice wine. But the team
was already high performing and I don’t think any of us actually learned anything each other. We did learn how to cook great seafood, which has been invaluable in the workplace

And the real kicker is that the content of all team building courses is always just common sense, so anyone with half a brain and a moderate amount of emotional intelligence just goes through the motions. If managers / leaders were better at recruiting, and better at managing and leading, 90% of these courses wouldn’t be necessary!!

I hate this team building nonsense and see no reason any of it should be outside working hours, away from the workplace. I get on fine with my colleagues, we do our jobs, sometimes a few of us have lunch together, an odd time we might go for a drink after work for someone's birthday. That works perfectly fine. Team building exercises are invasive and annoying. Whoever invented all this bullshit either had no friends or was just on some sort of power trip.

They are no longer appropriate.

We have an absolutely toxic work culture in the UK. The idea of a "team" is just a corporate fantasy.

If you work hard, exceed expectations, over perform, over deliver, your reward is just more work, not a pay rise. YOU have to argue for that, your company will NEVER offer it as thanks for a job well done.

You can't get close to colleagues, you absolutely can't "be yourself", which negates any ideology of "team". Any slip, no matter how slight or innocent can be career ending. A man holding a door open for me could be classed as harassment, any passing comment could be seen as racist or offensive. We are actively encouraged to report on each other, there have literally been signs on the doors of some places I have worked in which tell you what number to call if you "feel uncomfortable".

We are ordered to attend training sessions on "inclusiveness", and anti-racist, white privilege, woke festivities. Which are actually just divisive and do nothing other than line the pockets of the scores of misery merchants, posing as "training consultants".

The whole idea of "team work" is laughable considering most people work in environments where colleagues are crawling all over each other, stealing work and ideas to pass off as their own to get evidence for promotion. The only thing most "teams" have in common is the location of the water cooler.

These "team building" events are just another trap, try refusing to attend and see what happens. Better yet, give your latest presentation or project to another colleague and have them deliver the strategy to the bosses or clients, you're all "one team and in it together" right?

There's not a single one of you who would do it. YOU want the recognition for the work YOU did.

YOU don't care about the "team" either.

Yikes, I would definitely not be keen on the event OP describes. It would have me looking for a new job as the company wouldn't be the right cultural fit for me, so we would make each other miserable.

In my team, once or twice a year we vote on something we'd like to have extra training on (could be a system, could be something like influencing skills or stress management). We have a half day on that and a picnic or a meal out. So we get something out of the time together, as well as the interaction. The training part is mandatory - and never scheduled for a non-working day! - the social bit is optional.

I think it depends on how much of a social life you've got personally. If you're a bit low on it, they might be appealing.

I personally work 6 days. I don't want to spend precious bank holidays with them as well. Ive got a life thankyou.

I detest this shit. And it is all shit. And airy fairy happy clappy bollocks.

Spend the money giving people cash or gift vouchers of their choice. They'd much prefer that.

Oh what a surprise - MNers on the whole don't like team building. Actually, MNers on the whole don't seem to like any other people except their own "little family" and a carefully chosen coterie of friends!

I used to love them when I was a graduate. I worked in a company with lots of young gradies and a younger still support staff. Everyone was friendly and nice. No real office politics going on. So they were just fun events. I don't recall ever going away overnight. More just the day and then evening meal and into the night.

I did always hate training days where some external, over enthusiastic 'consultant' comes in with bullshit tasks that are supposed to be 'fun' to explain absolutely basic, common sense stuff.

Now I'm older with a family, I think I'd probably just find them a pain to be honest. The sort of thing you are describing that's 2/3 days away is just going to be a pain to arrange child/dog care. And if I was going away for a few days, I'd like it to be with who I choose. My husband does them sometimes with his work. Usually an overnight somewhere, activity, meal, out drinking. It's quite a young company and they all love it. My husband sometimes can't really be arsed depending what/where it is.

Not sure how you have possibly justified people having to travel for so long on a bank holiday.

@nothingsforgotten Twaddle. I have plenty of friends and had when I was working. Forced teaming is nothing to do with that, it's management incompetence and ego.

Yep, miserable is the word. I'm meeting up with four friends for coffee tomorrow, other than one who has been my friend since childhood all the others I met at work. Two weeks ago I had lunch with a friend who I met at work 40 years ago, and once a month I go out for dinner with people from my current workplace. And I am definitely not a social butterfly.

In a previous role I was going to work on the bus and spotted all our management accounts team blindfolded in a local park 😀. I always took care to avoid Team building days from that point onwards

And what is wrong with that?

Why should people be forced to hangout with people they don't choose? There's enough of that in the working day.

Btw, complete WFH is the way to go, I'll never go back to an office again if I can help it.

@FastnetLundyRockall what a perfect photo of management that would have been! 😆

Public sector by its very nature doesn’t generally have team building bollocks days, it’s amazing that we manage to function….

Hate the damn things. Some of the worst were when I worked for a firm that had a subsidiary which organised the bloody things.

The booze-up in the bar/pub after dinner was usually the best bit.

Q: Does anyone have any data to prove these team building days improve productivity and/or profit at all? I'm just wondering why companies pay out for them if there's no benefit?

I’ve made friends from work, don’t need a team building event to do that though.

Also with one of the workplaces that used to hold team building events regularly, they put us in teams with people we didn’t know from different offices/departments. So the chances of us ever talking to them again was very slim

Maybe when I was a trainee or NQ and the idea of a free bar and going on the lash after was appealing and nights out were abundant I got some enjoyment out of them.

Since getting older and particularly having kids my time away from work is way more valuable to me and my targets and billable aren't calculated on a pro rata basis to account for a missed day off work because I'm zip lining with the team so actually they're not just pointless they actively add to my stress levels and take away home with my family.

I get on well with the people I work with but seeing as I get to socialise with my actual friends and family much less frequently than when I was younger anything that impacts on my free time unnecessarily is going to piss me off.