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.

Fine to put forward an idea that spouses on a work trip should be a blanket no, or indeed agreed upon by all colleagues beforehand (this could go the other way for eg if a husband was invited in a woman only group. Some might not want a bloke around).

Not fine to assume your reasons for wanting to accompany. But v odd that she cites her potential behaviour towards the men as your motivation. Did she really say that?! And formally? Why would she suggest that? It makes no sense, in any context.

I don't think colleagues should be forced to spend evenings together at all.

Unless perhaps they're being paid for every single minute they're away on the trip.

Let me get this straight:

Female colleague has written to a manager saying:

“On Wednesday evening after the end of World Widget Audit Symposium I discovered that Bob and Arvind’s wives had travelled to the conference location with them. I can only conclude that Mrs Bob and Mrs Arvind insisted on attending because they believed I would be doing my best to seduce Bob and/or Arvind during the post-conference party at Rick’s Sports Bar and they did not trust Bob and Arvind to be able to resist my advances.

I object strongly to the insinuation that I am in any way unprofessional and, accordingly, I request that Big Widget immediately cease approving the presence of spouses at work events.”

Surely not?

Oh well, it was good while it lasted.

I used to work somewhere with this culture, albeit 20 years ago! They also always invited spouses to Christmas parties and company events.
Everywhere I’ve worked since has not allowed or encouraged this but has been fine with tagging on personal trips at the end of work ones (working in Paris Thursday and Friday, DH would come out Friday afternoon for a long weekend but we’d pick up the whole bill).
Not sure about the complaint other than it is very unusual to still have the spouses arrangement so maybe she’s jumped to conclusions?

There’s no way the presence of spouses would have had any impact whatsoever on the profitability of the company, if anything it created a happy community.

I have no idea what they did for lunch but we had booked a pub for dinner. My husband did not invite her but his colleague invited her to have a meal with him and his wife in the hotel but she declined.

I never saw her or the male colleague for that matter.

Everyone was sent a standard email but husband and male colleague were spoken to and given the reason with apologies but male colleague was told that these company now had to tread carefully.

tagging along to your partners business trips seems so old fashioned I am surprised this still happens I only worked for one company where this happened (finance) and it stopped while I was there years ago

I am sure others are complaining

and now she’s free to try!

If it was just her complaining but the bosses didn’t think there was an issue, they would have ignored it.

I don’t know anywhere that allows spouses to tag along on work trips - they often want the employees to have dinner together as well.

Perhaps there have been instances of some people taking the piss with expenses.

Either way they have decided that it’s time for it to finish.!

I think it’s weird that all the wives tag along and then have a date night with husband after the working day.

Also why is it relevant that it was a woman? Are your husbands so hot that she wont be able to resist their charms?

it’s possible not to approve of something without it being because she wants to fuck them

Well, I suppose senior management feels you can continue to be a ‘happy community’ in your own time, outside of work trips?

Both DH & I travelled a lot for business, for different companies, mostly internationally.. In all cases the policy was that partners could only join if it was declared in advance and agreed with the manager ( and obviously did not cost more).

As pp have said, there was some expectation of working on into the evening/ team building with local colleagues or being available for conference calls etc., although we did have time for sight seeing, dinners out etc. There was a balance.

That was the absolute norm in my industry

I find the reasoning and the complaint odd, but I don’t think the policy is unusual

Agree! It's all really weird.

Saying that I do think it's unusual that spouses were ever allowed to tag along in the first place. I used to do a lot of travelling with work and it was pretty much expected that you'd at least spend an hour sharing an evening meal with your colleague. What you did then varied, if you wanted to go to the gym or back to your room and chill (alone!) absolutely fine but if you were close friends and wanted to go for a drink or something that was fine too. So I can see why she might have been a bit annoyed if she was expecting to get to know her new colleagues and have a nice meal with them, to find out that everyone else had brought partners and she either had to eat alone or awkwardly third wheel with a married couple.

But agree that the way her complaint w as worded (or at least the way you've heard it worded) is bizarre.

It is a policy wherever I have travelled for work that no spouses are allowed. It is a tad unprofessional I suppose

It is a bit sudden and odd, however I used to work with this really weird guy who every time we had a social event he would ALWAYS say 'are partners invited?' and it drove everyone nuts. Eventually one day someone cracked and said 'No! They aren't! You can survive without her for one night!' I think your situation is different as you were all welcome and making friends but I used to think it was so odd that he would want someone at our company dinner who didn't know anyone there!

You can book your own trips together.

'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.'

Imagine you were the female colleague. The way the above is worded, it sounds like the first response was 'No, we're not eating as our wives are here.' And then an afterthought, 'Oh but you can join us.'

During work trips a lot of bonding takes place over shared dinner. Of course the company can't dictate that you attend or what you do in your free time. But if 90% of attendees are in this club where you socialise and have become friends, it'd be pretty hard to be in the remaining 10%. This work-but-not-work group doesn't feel particularly inclusive or conducive to good working relationships. Personally I feel the other employees should have made extra effort to include her. But maybe that's just me.

I am rather imagining that one of the men had either previously, or since, said something which made her uncomfortable and made her think they assumed she would be after them. So she's made a very strong statement making it clear she's not that sort of woman.

If, indeed, that is what she said.

How on earth was the employer squaring this with HMRC in the first place? Expenses are supposed to be wholly, exclusively and necessarily incurred for the business. Not an excuse for the company to provide VAT-free perks for employees’ spouses! Either that, or treating them as a P11D benefit, and making sure the employees were being taxed on it.

It wasnt really an offer to join by the sound of it. "We're going for lunch with our wives. But you can join us if you want" is very different to "yeah we're going for lunch here, our wives will be there too so you can meet them."

Presumably they had a hotel room which was necessary for the stay. A spouse staying wouldn't incur any extra charges and might even make the room cheaper.

Obviously spouses would pay for their own food etc.

Taking a spouse along? I agree. It would be deeply frowned upon in my industry (professional services).