Work place team building

[Millystokes214]

I had a friend recently wjo told me about a thing that she did at her work where they all made them do some kind of group activity as part of a bonding experience and it got me thinking whether other people have had similar things at work and what people’s opinions about them all? Personally, I think they’re fantastic idea but this person was absolutely adamant that it was the worst thing they'd ever experienced.

Loathe and hate “team building” with a passion.
Give me resources to do my job well and invest in training to strengthen the whole team
space to reflect on work

never done any type of team building which was worthwhile

I think the jury is always out on this kind of thing. I have done many over the years with my company from city treasure hunts to escape rooms. Some are better than others but most people on the surface at least come with the right attitude. I have generally really enjoyed them - they are what you make them. That said - I know plenty of people quite openly detest them. I guess it can depend on how you get on with your colleagues and what the activity is - but there are always going to be people that hate the whole thing regardless of those factors.

Only if done well.

Events organised for the sake of being organised are often pointless and just irritate employees.

As PP said, if you don’t have the basics people need to do their job in place, then team building is no good.

I detest team building. I work in a very busy NHS dept totally under resourced, very behind on actual job related training yet we spent a whole day doing things like bingo in a team building day.
Total waste of time and appointments. We all just wanted to get back to work and catch up.

Where I work, it’s all voluntary stuff and I just ignore the emails.

My son however is in his first grad job, and works somewhere where team building days are a thing for the whole organisation. He absolutely loves them and finds them very rewarding.

Team Building Events are a bad management 'go-to' to tick a box instead of building the team themselves. Team building is an active process not a one off event.

In the main, really dislike them. And I've been to a few over the years. I do not need to 'bond' with my colleagues in order to do a good job.

I have always found them cringy, performative and pointless.

I don't need to be friend and 'bond' with colleagues to do my job.

What employees need is a decent pay and conditions and a work environment where people respect each other.

Beyond that no need to pretend that there is such a thing as a 'work family' or that doing stupid games for a couple of hours is going to change anything.

My company loves these. We do a couple a year for my wider team of about 35 people. Some are fine, but I do think they’re a waste of money in the sense of doing anything beneficial for us as a team. We’ve got one in July that I’m working hard to get out of. The allergy options at these novelty event places are often very poor, so I sometimes can’t even eat there.

My manager once managed to swing our small team (just the 3 of us) having lunch and doing an escape room. That was pretty good, especially as it was during work hours so really was just a very long lunch. But again, from the company POV, a waste of money. We didn’t work better together after it.

I hate them. They favour people who are outgoing and socially confident, and quieter members of the group tend to get sidelined.
None of this accurately reflects how good people are at their job, or means they can’t work in a team in a professional context.

Tell us about the ones you’ve done OP and how they were fantastic.

Team building is a bag of shite. I don’t want to “bond” with any bugger I work with. I’m there for the money, I couldn’t give a toss about bonding with people I wouldn’t talk to again if I left the place.

I did them a lot when I was on a grad scheme that did a couple of two week residential courses a year. Most people enjoyed them but we had been recruited on to the scheme because we were the sort of people that would. Nothing better than saying what kind of dog would best represent your team and building Lego towers where you have to negotiate with other teams for the right bricks, am I wrong? I am that enthusiastic person normal people hate 😂
On the other hand people tried to do team building things with groups of academics when I was one and it was a total disaster. You can’t make a professor do something they don’t want to do, especially if there is any chance they might not be best at it. You can make them say their own name and talk for an age about their research but that’s it.

Yes we have them all the time.
So boring and pointless. Managers and staff have to fund it themselves and it’s crammed into work time.
You get back to work afterwards and have to cram your work into less hours.
The feeling is that staff absolutely do not want to spend any money on these events
I put on a front, I pretend to care. I don’t.
I know in reality I am just a number and completely replaceable.
I know that when staff are off sick for genuine reasons including times when the doctor has told them to stay off work, HR is down on them like a tonne of bricks.
A completed tick box exercise.
What would be a real benefit to me?
Cold hard cash and time off work.

I tell my work colleagues what I want them to know. I do not trust a lot if them. I don’t want them using personal information against me which I fear may happen.
Bring your whole self to work- only fits for certain people. The trending types who one day are Colin the next day are Catrina and want everyone to share their journey and sponsor their 6 week holiday to (insert far flung place which they would otherwise never be able to afford.)
Yet when Carole shares that her widowed mother has been diagnosed with a life threatening illness and would appreciate time off, on no not on the employers time.

This with knobs on! It's a load of contrived nonsense. An American import that needs sending right back!
It feels so manipulative.... a captive group of people made to jump through hoops and waste their day in stupid activities.
You are paid to do your job well, not to facilitate an ego trip for some self appointed ringmaster!

I thought this kind of nonsense (usually) had been consigned to history. I have not come across these for about 15 years.

I bloody hate them. Luckily i can swerve them these days, cos my role has changed.

Awful
Awful
Awful

Still remember the one where the consultants running it (we were a University professional services department) were openly gob smacked that people had put family and friends above work in their life priorities.

Then there was the building a Lego Bridge.
Then there was an actual treasure hunt in a specific town with no care or concern for colleagues with physical disabilities.
Then there was the one where the director told a wheelchair user to stand up when introducing himself.

I've erased the rest from my mind.

You have to fund them yourselves?!

Yes we pay for all lunches, meals, drinks etc.
The managers do sometimes provide stuff but they have to pay for it, all of it, so it’s always crap. Of course it is.
I don’t expect any manager to pay for 20 staffs drinks all day and the cost of say bowling and cinema or escape rooms.. Then neither will I ever pay for that to spend time with people who I don’t really want to socialise with.
I work in the public sector so otherwise the tax payer is paying.
Hence why none of the staff ever want to do anything, why would they?
Don’t get me wrong I am very good friends with some of my work colleagues and we do socialise outside of work.
However the general consensus is that the staff do not want to spend their own money on team building events, why on earth would they?
So they are pointless, cheap, totally boring( as they have to be done dirt cheap) crap shit times. All of them.

Someone has suggested an event for a team building exercise. The cost is around £50 plus transport costs and any associated afterwards cost such as food and drinks.
Now whilst the event would be one I enjoy, I have done it for a birthday treat with my dd, I am 100% not going to spend this amount of cash, and my own time doing it with work colleagues.
I very much doubt the vast majority of staff will do it either.
So again the next team building event, of which we stupidly have to keep having, will be utterly crap.

I heard from a friend who works at a local school (I won’t disclose the name) who had a teambuilding exercise which revolved around singing and dancing and it sounds like the most ridiculously stupid thing I’ve ever heard of. Utterly shortsighted by the management, utterly clueless; some happy clappy attempt at bringing together a staff body. I’m assuming they simply didn’t want to be there. I would love to have been a fly on the wall but I also feel for those poor teachers having to sit through an unbearable few hours of forced fun.

it’s time like this you have to blame the management who are clearly wrapped up in their own bubble of shortsightedness they have no idea how the real world looks.

I’m not a fan of them. I also hate the “tell us an interesting fact about yourself”, role plays and “brainstorming in a team then one of you gets up and presents it to the group” nonsense.

I lead a team of 11 people. We organise our own little informal ones (we have to pay for ourselves) but it’ll be a team breakfast or lunch. We had lunch and a visit to a museum that is related to our role the other week, which was nice. We don’t go in our own time!

Meeting icebreakers too, what the hell is the bloody point. If you need an icebreaker so you feel comfortable in a meeting, you shouldn’t be there.

Just get the meeting started, let’s get to the point and get the bloody thing over with.

I would hate anything like a team
building exercise. Never done one. Once, a new HR person with little to do suggested one - a sporty one, in our own time. It was quickly shut down.