[Closed] How involved are you in your work's "society"?

I find with a couple of colleagues that they do all the social stuff to mask that they are shit at their job, but it's ok as everyone likes their cake.

A sure fire way of telling some one who is shit at their job, ask them what they bring to the office/workplace, they will, without fail, say 'morale'

It's a Facebook love in, everyone friends with everyone up to director level. Except me.

Looks like it's a bit overdone at your work, but there is a place for "team playing" - I prefer someone who will fit into the team than someone who is super-good technically but a bit of an arsehole.

I'm not on Facebook (everyone else seems to be) hardly ever in the office as I work off site 90% of the time and most of the time I only know when someone is leaving when I'm asked to sign a card!

I'm from a manufacturing back ground and all seems load of bollocks to me, I work to pay the bills that's it, there collages not my mates I don't know whether its a sexs thing as 95% of the office is female.....

Anyway they probably all see me as a bit of a dinosaur but I don't loose any sleep over it. 🙂

All I'm required to do is pick up a car at point A and deliver it safely and on time to point B, outside of that there's no 'society', for which I'm very happy indeed.

Work in a traditional boozer, so the society of the business [i]is[/i] the business.

For the last twenty years my job, wherever it is, has been about an hour commute away, so any social events require an overnight stay. Not happening. I guess they all think I'm a bit of a misery but hey what the hell

I don't do the work social thing for many reasons the most polite of which is, I'm not a people person.

The main joy of being freelance/self-employed is that you don't have to even register any of this crap.

You're just the bloke that comes in, does stuff, and goes home, while getting paid more than everyone else, so nobody likes you anyway

Its ace! 😀

Football, bowling, clubbing ect.I avoid it all and go out on my bike.

One of the things I missed the most when I was working from home was the office/team thing, being able to have a conversation about something else, go for a coffee, go for a beer etc. now in a co working space and it's great we go out, meet up, organise to do stuff like book a bus out to the local mid winter festival and loads more. The Belgian guy brought in waffles for Belgium Day, it was awesome 🙂

Work takes up such a large amount of your life might as well enjoy it

Trailrider Jim - Member
I'm exaggerating but does anyone else have this sort of situation and how do you feel about it and act?

tomhoward - Member
I find with a couple of colleagues that they do all the social stuff to mask that they are shit at their job, but it's ok as everyone likes their cake.

Lots of organisations are struggling with finding and keeping good people. The Oxford Economics forum found recently that the average cost to replace an employee in a knowledge worker field is about £30K. This covers base costs of HR, marketing efforts, impacts to performance of the business, training... the list goes on.

Organisations are also learning (slowly) that people work more effectively when left to their own devices and they are not micro-managed through "assigned tasks" by people who don't know their job as well as they do.

As a way to try not have to incur these costs, people are looking for quick wins to try and get people to enjoy being at work and to feel engaged and part-of the company not just like a cog in a big machine. It's very difficult, particularly at scale.

Leaving people to solve problems rather than to complete tasks also helps them to stay motivated, engaged and interested which has proven to result in better products, better teams, lower attrition, happier customers, more profit etc..

Lots of this has its routes in the New Product Development Game from 1986 (HBR) and Peter Drucker before that. There is a sliding scale and it starts where you are now and continues to areas such as Organisational Agility, Management 3.0 & Holacracy where employees are treated more as the responsible, autonomous, decision-making individuals that they are outside of work rather than plug and play "resources" like desks or a bag of spanners.

Enjoy the cake 🙂

We have a system where your involvement in the community is required in order to get a pay increase or promotion.

This could mean doing internal trainings in your lunchtimes to going outside an "volunteering" at a school or charity...

In addition to this some poor sod will be selected to bring in cake or breakfast periodically...

cornholio98 - Member
We have a system where your involvement in the community is required in order to get a pay increase or promotion.

Some of my colleagues have to force themselves to find something to volunteer in order to maintain their jobs. They have children and family commitments but that is not good enough coz the company wants publicity, instead the company force people to "engage" with irrelevant PR stunts.

Some of my colleagues have to force themselves to find something to volunteer in order to maintain their jobs.

lol / shakes head in despair.

When good ideas go bad.

ade9933 - Member

Some of my colleagues have to force themselves to find something to volunteer in order to maintain their jobs.

lol / shakes head in despair.

When good ideas go bad.

Basically you have someone at the top or HR that lacks the elementary understanding of motivation to work. Oh ya, you never see them volunteering either ...

You should see how creative some of my colleagues can in filling in the details of volunteer to work. 😆

Leaving people to solve problems rather than to complete tasks also helps them to stay motivated, engaged and interested which has proven to result in better products, better teams, lower attrition, happier customers, more profit etc..

aP
Sounds like normal young people, same every time, I remember the ones from the mythical grad scheme who knew it all, could do it better and be home sharpish before demanding another promotion. That was a good 10 years ago a d the same stories from before then.

I aim to do that, but increasingly with millennials it just doesn't work - as they appear to consider that they're here, and great, and should be paid loads - just not particularly diligent and with seemingly no particular desire to want to learn the specific skills required to deliver the work and a massive dislike of having their work reviewed and asked to revise/ rework it.
Oh, and they all clock watch and go home at 5:29:59pm - which is one of the reasons why I'm in the office today.

Tricky and of course you're not the first person to say this. I guess there could be a couple of things to consider. It's not a situation that I've encountered. The millennials I have worked with have all been engaged and motivated to change things for the better.... the old guard however is another matter 🙂

Things to consider... (if you haven't tried them already...

1) Team Chemistry. There is good article on business science from Deloitte on Harvard Business Review where they talk about the different personality types and how sometimes it can be the different way of looking at things that people don't understand. They boil it down nicely to 4 key types. It certainly resonated with me.

2) Sometimes we teach the innovation and problem solving mentality out of people. I worked with a team recently that had become so used to having their problems solved, they just looked at me blankly when I said "so what - what are YOU going to do about it?".... it takes time.

3) I heard a good quote recently too: "Don't fight stupid, make more awesome". Sit down with them informally, have feedback sessions as a group to see how you can make things better, take a few actions each week, listen and make sure it's a 2-way open and honest street etc.

[url= https://www.forbes.com/sites/micahsolomon/2016/01/26/everything-youve-heard-about-millennial-employees-is-baloney-heres-the-truth-and-how-to-use-it/#6c4b46b34904 ]Here's a Forbes article on it too[/url]

Good luck! Have you tried more cake 🙂

1) Team Chemistry. There is good article on business science from Deloitte on Harvard Business Review where they talk about the different personality types and how sometimes it can be the different way of looking at things that people don't understand. They boil it down nicely to 4 key types. It certainly resonated with me.

We had an inflatable it's a knockout course on Wednesday. I contributed by quaffing guinness and heckling from the balcony. Shouted at my boss to "go faster you lazy hippie". There was a definite increase in speed and a ripple of laughter from some new colleagues, morale boost achieved 8)

I ride occasionally with a couple of work colleagues but that's about it. No work nights out, meals or anything. There is a definite devide between what we would call admin and engineering.

Ours is fairly limited - office Xmas party and the odd karting event.

I'm usually happy to get involved, the one thing that does sadden me a bit is that because of what I do any social involving clients means I have make sure they're having a good time and that, most of my colleagues will just hangout with their mates from work. Last time out was hard going for me, I was having problems at home and just wanted to be with my family working through things not sitting in a curry house prentending to be happy.

Had a discussion with a colleague at work the other and he seemed quite put out when I said I wasn't his 'friend'.
I believe a friend is someone you socialise with not just work along side.
I work with about 30 lads of varying ages (production line in car factory). Half of them I don't speak to, don't work near them. Other half I'll speak to if they speak to me, about half of that number I'll have a conversation with. About 4 I would willing go out for a drink with!
We settled on 'work friends' to make him feel better!

Well since we spend most of out time at work it a great shame if you can't get on and be 'pal'y' with your work colleagues. Doesn't mean you have to socialise with them out of work apart form the odd work do, but makes the day go quicker if you do get on with them and makes the team more productive. No truer word said that a happy worker is a productive worker (not sure who said it having said that) and it's been proved that companies that invest in the office environment and encourage their workforce to 'get to know eachother' a bit better they see a return on their investment many times over. Can feel a bit cheesy and staged sometimes, but if people put the effort in it generally benefits everyone.

Not sure why anyone wouldn't want to get to know their work colleagues a bit better? Getting to know people and what makes them tick helps you when working with them. Doesn't take much - just an enquiry about how their weekend/holiday/evening/important meeting went is often all it takes.

Not sure why anyone wouldn't want to get to know their work colleagues a bit better?

Yes, I think they all think that they're Pioneers and Integrators, but aren't interested in Driving or Guardianing.
I certainly see the Drivers in my management team
I rather think that people are bits of all - sometimes there's no overall clear style in people.
Oh yes, and more cake!

Yes. I agree. I believe they have categorised a range of different sub types with about 10% of people being an even split. I think it's a decent tool to help share perspectives and explain PoV without making things personal.

Not sure why anyone wouldn't want to get to know their work colleagues a bit better?

Some people just don't really want to know about other people, especially when knowing them a bit better means disliking them more.

I'm definitely in this category. There's a handful of people, mainly my direct team, that I get on well with and am not averse to heading out with for a coffee or a pint. But there's other people within the organisation that I probably wouldn't even say hello to in the street. The little I know of them has convinced me I don't want to know any more.

I'm one of those people who will go along to a leaving do for someone in my team/department, but thinks the office Christmas Do is his very idea of hell.

I hate people

I don't get involved much with the "society" at my work. There isn't a great deal of socialising anyway as it's social care and approximately 1/3 of us are on duty at any given time.
There's also an implicit expectation from higher management that workers will do extra in their own time which uses up a lot of any goodwill.
I live about 45 minutes away from the base and fortunately a lot of my work is "outreach" and keeps me out of the worker base for up to a week at a time.

I work alone and often don't even talk to a soul all day. Had days where I've not uttered a word from waking up to home at dinner time.

I can't stand all the ar*e kissing I see a lot of people (especially young females) do in the office. But it does get them somewhere.

I can't be arsed for the most part. I'm there to be paid.

I'll work hard for that pay and happily train people but if you want extra from me there needs to be recompense

I get home after a shift at work, walk in the front door; the kids are there, tea's in the oven etc. etc.

I open my mouth and I can often detect a slight pause as my brain remembers how to make my lips and vocal chords sync up to produce a sound known as the word "hello".

I'm a member of the old guard, most of us have been de-motivated and micro managed to death so when the latest happy clappy staff motivational stuff arrives it is either ignored or sneered at. I've tried not to become a victim of the system but with 12 years left to go I really cannot be bothered anymore. Don't screw up, don't kill customers and collect pension.

Did I mention I'm a contractor?
None of the corporate BS here but I find time passes quicker if you do actually get on with the people you're working with.

Still means I CBA to go out socially with them after hours though. I guess I could check into a local hotel (public transport to Ripon from anywhere other than Harrogate is a non-starter) but that means spending the money I've just earned!

Current company is small, about a dozen of us, there's the xmas dinner and one maybe two drinking nights in Leeds. That's it.

At previous companies that were much bigger (a couple of hundred employees on the sites I was working at) they were given the distinct message that I'd do what I wanted beyond my work requirements and not to expect me to be sociable. I'd go for Friday lunchtime drinks and meals with the immediate team but nothing beyond that.

There's individuals from all three companies who I'll occasionally go for a drink with but that's just because I get on with them and nothing to do with any schemes the companies might have concocted.

I go around calling everyone a **** and slagging off everyone above the rank of assistant to the assistant because that's the point they remove the decision making gland. So I fit right in.

I'm quite prepared to buy the cakes, I don't bake them.

The main joy of being freelance/self-employed is that you don't have to even register any of this crap.

You're just the bloke that comes in, does stuff, and goes home, while getting paid more than everyone else, so nobody likes you anyway

Its ace!

+1

Don't think I could ever work with anyone again,

My company pushes the social thing quite hard, but to be honest most people buy into it freely and it works very well. They especially like to involve families. We do a Christmas dinner and also a mid-winter Christmas dinner (southern hemisphere so Christmas is in the summer), usually just a restaurant meal with partners, but sometimes an event like a night a the charity boxing (local business people clobbering each other, plus a local pro having a proper fight in the end. I'm not interested in boxing but it was a fun night out) or a murder-mystery type dinner.

Every second year the offices in the region get together for a weekend, with all family invited, which is about 80% paid for by the company (travel costs too). Lots of social events during the day, drinks and meals in the evenings. Every other year it's the whole company (about 80 people) again with partners and kids included. It's generally expected that everyone will go, but there's no issue if you miss a few. And it's usually quite fun, most people are happy to go.

My office went out karting a few weeks ago, took off early one Friday to do it then had a couple of beers afterwards. My office manager is a keen mountain biker, as is the other engineer here, so now and again we all knock off early on a Friday and go to [url= http://redwoods.co.nz/bike/ ]the Redwoods[/url] 😀

In the past we've done 4x4 driving, archery, white-water rafting too.

And we have a table-tennis table in the office, and the three of us in the office and the director who is usually based here are all fairly handy at it. If we're all here on a Friday then we knock off at 4.30 for beers and very competitive doubles matches. In the heat of a game it's perfectly acceptable to call the manager or the director all manner of names that wouldn't go down too well in normal circumstances, which is handy!

I refuse to get involved at all outside of working hours. I have a hard and fast rule that I do not add work colleagues on facebook for example and never meet up outside of work. I have nothing in common bar work with those I work with, have no friends from work. work is work and home is home and I never mix the two

I have nothing in common bar work with those I work with, have no friends from work. work is work and home is home and I never mix the two

@WillH where do you work in Roto? Sounds like a great Kiwi life there.

I ride with a couple of colleagues but that's arranged by us not work. Had enough of "being social" working in the public sector. 14 years and i think i went to 2 "events" i always managed to clash them with someting else 😉

I only went to my own leaving speech as it was during work hours, in the same room i was working in & my leaving present was beer 😆

I treat it much like how i treat the "i waved to a cyclist & they didn't wave back" threads

Just because we [s]both ride bikes[/s] work together it doesn't mean i have to like you

The work/social balance in my world revolves around working Flat Chat Monday through Thursday, then after work beers in one of the bars with a very large group, from not only my work but the other offices around. Healthy and heated debates about specifics ensue, another beer, folks entering/leaving the discussion group then at about 8pm everyone either saunters off to a restaurant or heads home. Fridays in the office is normally very quiet, normally a "mop up" day from all the crap that happened earlier in the week...
But our world is a good world.
I/we get to meet others from other institutions, varying degrees of the same culture, always new people joining and others moving on to something different.. or the same for someone else. Keeping up with what's going on is interesting, meeting new folks is interesting, seeing off folks to other places is interesting too.
It's all so volatile and transient in my world.
There is a structure for volunteering within the workplace, most do something at some point but it's not compulsory, mostly it's for the local community.. some sort of gardening initiative or painting railings or a community endeavour of some sort.. surprised often at how many work colleagues volunteer for this kind of thing. Most seem to enjoy "doing a little bit" for someone else, and yes it's obviously a paid day out but still we get all sorts from b-c level board through to interns and folks that have been employed by the same institution for 30yrs ..

But for me it's all about the Thursday night beers and a bit of networking.

We're a team of 6 in my office (further 9 colleagues darn souf), and when we are not Bessie Mates, were genuinely get on. We don't go out of our way to socialise outside of work, but the few times a year we do end up having a meal/coffee/team day/flight together, it's an absolute giggle. our team day is this week, planning the year ahead and getting creative about new ideas, so we're all going canoeing and doing the work in our company teepee...
There isn't any politics, and there isn't anything false about it - we work hard, get on, and have a pleasant time while we do.

Mike - I have nothing at all in common with the people I work with. I have not a single friend from my entire working life - they are just not my sort of people at all. I get on well with them at work but have no basis for a friendship at all. No shared interests etc.

A sure fire way of telling some one who is shit at their job, ask them what they bring to the office/workplace, they will, without fail, say 'morale'

Hmmm. When I worked in the City I was often told how I was good for the team and helped with morale 😳

In my new job I think the balance is just right as it is a nice place to be and individuals do appear to take ownership and responsibility. Cake is a nice to have rather than a necessity.

I remember a time when one guy organised a Saturday bike ride. It was promoted by email, with the route. Some of us went. About half-way round we met the MD and two HoDs on their private bike ride.

Because feeling appreciated and part of a team is so important.