Husband’s female colleague’s issue being taken very seriously.

[Sweetmarzipan]

So background. DH works in a fairly male dominated industry.

When he first started in this company he would be away fairly often. One or two nights away every 4/6 weeks. One week in April and the odd conference.

I almost always went with him if I could for no other reason than the free hotel. If there were other colleagues they would have have their spouses with them as well. We became friends with many of them and still socialise. Irrelevant to my post but we always had separate bills and we never exploited expenses and we never saw other colleagues do this either but obviously the room was the same price regardless of occupancy.

Covid came along and other ways of doing things came about so audits etc were done remotely and these trips are now few and far between.

Last week I did join him for the first time in probably 6 months. He was leaving the centre with a male colleague in his fifties and a female colleague (mid thirties but I don’t know if anyone will find ages relevant) who had joined the company around three to six months ago (DH and colleague differ on the dates).

As they left to check into hotel the female colleague asked if they were eating, but they said that they had their wives with them and the male colleague said that she was welcome to join them but she declined. We had booked a pub meal on our own.

They were all together on Friday but over the weekend she has made a complaint suggesting that I and the other colleague’s wife had deliberately tagged along as they believed she would be unprofessional and inappropriate.

An email has now gone out saying that spouses are no longer able to tag along.

Colleague was spoken to face to face and the bosses did seem apologetic. DH was on a site and saw the email and was phoned by one of the directors again with apologies.

Surely she should have been told about the culture of the company. I am really gobsmacked. Two other wives have texted me this morning and they feel the same. We had a really nice lifestyle there which is bound to have created a nice work environment.

I mean not necessarily just for work. If the stint is a long one then clearly there's going to be downtime too. And so what if that downtime is with a spouse or partner?
Does the thought of people enjoying themselves somehow irk you?

I've noticed this a lot on Mumsnet in general.

Firstly, that a lot of people seem to actively dislike their partner and spending time with them, and whose marriage is just a sort of bleakly endless battle of the sexes where neither of them really likes the other at all.

Secondly, that a lot of people are such absolutely sticklers for being 'professional' that they're almost at the point where they're humiliating themselves for the employers, offering themselves up like cap-doffing boot-lickers for the privilege. All this 'It's important to mix with colleagues in the evenings, it's professional, it's for the good of the team, you owe you employer something more than the hours you're paid for, if you don't work late all the time then you can't possibly have a PROPER job in a PROFESSIONAL environment' makes me cringe. This stuff is basically one step away from the 'Boar On The Floor' episode of Succession.

Also, people on Mumnset who think you have to mingle with colleagues and 'network' in the evenings on work trips tend to be the same ones who think it's 'unprofessional' to, eg, laugh and joke with colleagues during the day or have any kind of chat about your personal life, which feels oddly contradictory.

Honestly, some people really just need a bit of non-regulation joy in their lives and something to think about beyond making their employer some more money.

Perhaps you do live in a different world to the 50+ aged men taking their spouses, then? Which is what several of us, including OP I gather, are?

My DH is a senior exec with a FTSE100 company. He hasn’t done a 9-5 DAY in his entire working life and is on call 24/7, 365 days a year as his teams are spread across all the continents and time zone. He is processing emails/ calls/ documents/ whatever is Trump is doing from the moment he wakes up until he goes to bed and often over the weekends; and has not had a holiday in a decade that hasn’t involved mornings on emergency board meetings/zooms in our hotel room while I distract the kids at the pool. I suspect OP and others here have similar experiences.

The quid pro quo for a member of staff of his level being on call is based on trust and decades of professional respect that he has earned as a result. It isn’t that the company can dictate how they spend their evenings - and who with - when they have to visit a non- ‘home’ office, any more than they can when they are at home. If DH wants to take a few hours off to go sightseeing - on his own or with me when I go, if he knows people in the city [as he often does now] he will meet them for drinks and beers - it doesn’t mean he is in anyway ‘not focused’ on the business he is in the city to do. He is in no way less professional when he is meeting old colleagues, friends and family in far flung cities after a long day, than he is when he is holed up in his room alone, eating a room service meal with his laptop for company. I find it odd that you feel you would be.

He’s planned for me to start joining him because other senior people do occasionally take their spouses, and we are finally in a position where I can pack a bag, jump on an easy jet flight and join him without a moment’s thought for the kids - and the company clearly have no issue with it.

Travelling for work isn’t for everyone and lots of younger people in particular don’t want it.
It’s disruptive to family life.
Op is clear that the 3 colleagues were on site working Thursday and Friday during work hours. There’s no suggestion they slacked off or wives there distracting them.

Unless you have a flexible spouse or family support being away 2 days every 4-6 weeks is a pain if you have children. Some people won’t entertain it as they have caring commitments, pets or it disrupts their hobbies or volunteer commitments.

The person whose name is on the booking - ie with whom the contract is - is responsible obviously? They can then call the police to have you arrested and press for criminal charges and seek compensation from you via a civil suit.

But it has no more to do with the company of the person booking the Air B nB than if a wife got off her face and trashed her husband’s car one evening. I am not sure why you think the 50 something wives of 50 something/senior employees are likely to join them at a hotel and behave like rock band groupies, though? They will simply be shopping and visiting museums in the day and joining their husband for a meal/ drinks somewhere nice (at their own expense) in the evening.

All a bit far fetched really.

And the best way of never even having to consider such situations? Do not allow employees to bring their spouses on work trips. All very simple really.

Then people can pick a career where travel is not expected.

I am 100% certain that a company that has been going for over 100 years, that has always allowed spouses to occasionally join, does so because it would never bloody happen. And would not be their legal responsibility anyway, as already explained. We’re talking [real] finance professionals, not the [fictional] lads from Auf Wedersehen Pet.

You’re 100% certain? Wow that’s amazing, and that’s exactly how safeguarding and risk assessments work: a person being 100% certain that something won’t happen.

@KatsPJs they can’t blanket ban spouses as employees are entitled to reasonable adjustments. A needs someone to check his cpap machine, B wears hearing aids and may not hear fire alarm, C has an 12 month old breastfeeding and wants her dh to stay with baby so she can feed her to sleep as is their normal routine.
Simple solutions often had unintended effects I don’t moan if dh needs to work on holiday or fly out on a Sunday or at last minute due to some emergency. Dh could be a lot less flexible. It works both ways.

Yes - working from the home/UK office is generally no different to working in the overseas office.

Breakfast and dinner still eaten before and after the working day.

The only thing that changes is that the office in which the meetings take place. Work trips are really NOT that sexy. You get up, eat, go to an office, get signed in my security and issued a pass, you work/have meetings, and then when the scheduled day is done, you head home or to a hotel. It might be 42 degrees outside if you are in AbuDabi or Texas or Singapore, it might be chuffing cold on the schlep across Chicago or New York, the dog may yak up on your briefcase when you get home… but the evening meal in yet another soulless hotel or great local restaurant, a bit of telly, and a review of any emails is generally the norm before bed.

This has nothing to do with reasonable adjustments though-that is a completely separate point and not at all relevant here.

Yes. I am. Safeguarding is not about who is staying at the hotel - otherwise they’d have to vet every employee and guest, wouldn’t they? Behave.

Actually I can’t bear the stupidity on this thread any more - the way some posters are responding it is a bloody wonder that employees are allowed to work anywhere other than from their homes, and even then there would need to be a risk assessment before they were allowed to pull out the dining room chair.

Ridiculous. I am out.

You can’t say that though. They may have never needed to declare any health needs as custom and practice until Monday was for spouse to be able to tag along.

i think you’re talking about a different kind of existence

I think some of the disconnect on this thread may be that ‘work trips’ means something very different to different people.

Some are seeing it as a special group thing rather than just doing your work day in a different location.

Pretty sure Mrs Branson has a completely different existence to this frankly (edits are visible as you know).

Whether you are Manchester, Berlin or Bognor - the working day is pretty much uniform wherever you are for most people.

Indeed, that is what I’ve been trying to get across too. Business travel is really rather mundane 99% of the time.

The OP’s husband works in audit where he goes away for short periods to work on audits. You’ve described a very senior role, where even if the OP’s husband was an audit partner he wouldn’t be at that level.
There’s obviously a difference between very senior roles and most roles. I know a guy who works like your husband but he’s a CEO, he’s not comparable to the guy doing the audit.

I do live in a different world to your husband, so do most people as senior executives are only a handful of the workforce.

I deleted that when I quickly remembered she had died.

If they are real 😀

I guess we are probably not the sort of people whose first thought is "it's all about me". My first thought (and frankly only thought) is how the management - especially the executive management - have allowed such a can of worms to build up withough someone saying

"Er, you know how we always let staff bring their (heterosexual) spouses on work outings ? Has anyone checked to see if that policy, official or not, has any implications for us legally ? In particular how it might be viewed from the point of view of ensuring we treat employees according to the various obligations of the 2010 EA ?"

Obsessing over who raised the issue and their possible motives - with decreasing connection to reality - seems a tad odd to me.

Having spent more time than I ever wanted to working out how my team could be invited to an extracurricular event a couple of years ago, I thought I was au fait with some of the issues.

Did you mean to quote me? Because we seem to be on the same "side" here.

It's not the work that's bad, it's the being away from home. Research is pretty clear that traveling for work is generally bad for employees wellbeing and that taking a companion improves things.

So bad luck if you are single