If your company is relying on mandatory after-hours activities to create a team spirit, then you probably have bigger problems than how/when to hold the activities and whether to pay people. Those activities can be a lot of fun and can add to the team bonding (especially when spouses/significant others are there). But in a list of important elements in creating a team spirit, that kind of activity has to be well behind a lot of other factors that actually focus on the workplace.

Well said.

The subject is building an effective WORK team. Not a bowling team, Christmas Party team or any other team. Work team building should take place during normal working hours if attendance is required.

Agreed.

Wow, David...just wow.
You make a couple of truly gross generalizations here.
The work environment you've built is apparently quite different from any work world I've existed in. Or any group including my family. Trust me, I've discussed the things my husband does that are pet peeves but they still exist. And no amount of communication or going out is going to change that.
Venting a/k/a letting off steam is a good thing. It helps one recognize that it's not worth it to sweat the small things. Equating doing that with not having a strong sense of Team is actually insulting to me.

This. The organizations I've worked in with a poor culture failed to communicate (even at my own, younger-self's doing). Where I'm at now, management communicates well with us and sets expectations for just about everything and it's a big reason why we have such a healthy culture. We do team-building activities (volunteering, team lunches, etc.) that are optional, but most of us go if we're available.

i once notified my boss that I would not be attending the company Christmas Party. Our CEO/President/Chairman called me to his office to say he heard i would not be attending and that it would reflect poorly on my future opportunities in the company as it would reflect i was not a "team player". I simply stated that my father having major surgery and me being there was more important, so if that submarined my future opportunities then perhaps i was working for the wrong company. One that frequently preached "family values" and "work-life balance."

Boy, did he have a change of heart real fast. I still ended up leaving within a year.

I've been at several banks over a 45 year career. The ones that succeeded in the teambuilding were the ones that recognized the value of employees as a resource. Barnett Banks in Florida was one of the best. Their culture was tri-centric - employees, customers and stockholders. Annually, they would have an employee appreciation week. Small gifts on the desk each morning, managers serving breakfast to employees, etc. In each community they would advertise the week in the newspapers and invite customers to come in and thank the bankers. Everyone there bled green blood - and would do anything for the company. ($45B bank in 1997 - taken over by BOA.)

Since there were too many in legal and compliance to attend various schools, they brought the training in-house - literally a week of all-day training by the experts - where the subject matter was relevant to other departments, it was opened to them.

The dedication was built, not with after hours parties, but with listening managers and management, appreciating the employees. (An example of the bank going out of its' way. After Hurricane Andrew hit, and disrupted many lives, management cleared out the storage rooms in the Miami Lakes Operations Center. They got permission from the local school board and set up a preK to 8th grade school, hired teachers, etc. This way, parents could assure their children were safe and receiving their education and normalizing a bad situation. Parents got to see their children whenever they wanted. Presidents in the other non-affected areas held after-hour officer meetings at Sam's Costco's etc. buying needed supplies and driving them to the Op Center to help out. Every one helped out, because someday, they might be the recipient.

Team building starts with the heart.

years ago, Dale Carnegie had a training course called "How to win friends and influence people." at the time, the instructors would walk around with a rolled up newspaper and if the participants gave an incorrect answer, they would get swatted with the newspaper. While that may have worked in the 40s-60s, certainly would not fly now, and so that practice ended.

team building is much the same, what may have worked 20, 30, 40 years ago is very different today. if you don't value, respect, and appreciate those who work on your team, and show them that daily, then no amount of after hours function will fix that. I have over 60 people that report in my group, i speak to each of them every day, if only for a minute or 2. and they know they can come to me for anything. want to build a kick-tail team, start there.

after hours functions should be done as a reward, not a chore.

I tend to agree with Happy. I have over 50 people in my group and forcing a team building event on them would not be well received. I do host team events for them, out of my own pocket, and the events are never 100% attended. This is fine, as each employee has different responsibilities outside of work and forcing them to revise or postpone their life is not going to build comradery. In my opinion it will have the opposite effect.

I think at the end of the day, people must learn how to do their job AT WORK. And people are different....but the bottom line is performance at work. If you can't be competent AND work as a team, then you should be let go. It isn't rocket science to exhibit the necessary cooperation with others....and it doesn't take a close personal relationship to do so either. A professional relationship works just fine.

Nothing increases moral and team building better than forcing people to do things things that they do not want to do on their own time.<sarcasm font>

^^^ yup this....and the word generalizations was mentioned earlier in the thread, sounds more like assumptions to me.

There's some great feedback and suggestions in this thread. Love it! There's also some harsh comments that I don't appreciate. As Truffle said about me "You make a couple of truly gross generalizations here." that same is true from my perspective. The bottom line I've said several times is to communicate. Team Building is not an exact science and I'm not trying to say you have to do this or that. I'm trying to defend the OP's manager that is apparently trying to build trust by spending time together outside of work.

Happy's testimony about the Christmas Party and talking with the CEO/President/Chairman is an extreme case. Happy's father having surgery is obviously most important. To think that I would still require anyone to attend a company party over being with a family member that is having surgery is ridiculous. Again - a gross generalization.

I've received over 20 emails and private messages (so far) from people saying they agree with the comments I made earlier, but they don't want to post publicly because they see the "beating" (as two people have called it) that I'm taking. You can disagree with me, but when you stop others from posting comments, you're creating a negative atmosphere that does not promote healthy discussion.

Google "Organizational Health" and you'll find experts like Patrick Lencioni, John Maxwell, Henry Cloud & Peter Drucker. I've read numerous books from these experts and have heard everyone one of them speak on several occasions. Everyone of these people discuss Team building outside of work as a tool to build your company's culture. Check out these resources before you respond again:
https://www.tablegroup.com/organizational-health
https://www.tablegroup.com/books/dysfunctions

Google "5 Enemies of Unity" and you'll find a list by Dave Ramsey (another expert on great cultures) that mentions gossip. Gossip (according to Ramsey) is defined as "anything negative said to anyone that can't fix it." I subscribe to this idea. Ranting about pet peeves of co-workers is gossip. You can say it's healthy to "vent" or "blow off steam", but numerous scientific studies disprove that claim. Talking to others about you negative experiences is a cancer that destroys unity and a companies culture. It also can destroy you.
https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/the-5-enemies-of-unity/

I knew my comment about the Pet Peeves discussion would ignite some of you (and I even stated that in my post). I didn't call any of you out specifically, so if you responded to that, you must be identifying yourself with it. Why? I think it's a fair assumption to say you recognize the negativity (gossip) of your comments in that discussion.

I could go on and on (this is a passionate area of mine), but I'm convinced that many of you are very set in your opinions and not interested in hearing anything to the contrary.

Rocky - Barnett was a class act...one of a handful of my all-time most highly respected organizations. Even after it's reduced to memories, I enjoy learning why it was so great.

After a decade as a regulator, my first (and only) bank was what what then known as Bank of Virginia. BOVA was founded as a Morris Plan Bank and never lost that consumer-centric culture. We operated by the motto "the customer is always right" and members of the staff were respected and well-treated from the top down.

My "compliance officer" position reported to the head of the operations division--which included many hundreds of people. In addition to departmental events (on bank time) and the company-wide Christmas breakfast (half of the last working day before Christmas) and annual marketing meeting (all staff invited, evening event, nice hotel, great food & drinks, annual report preview by our chairman and top execs), the operations division budgeted for a late summer picnic.

The picnic was held on a Saturday at the nearby Kings Dominion theme park, all operations division staff and their families were invited (at the division's expense) for a full day of fun with the kids. The only catch was that we had to be on or ahead of budget to pay for the picnic. Needless to say, this event was highly anticipated and a very strong incentive for all employees to do everything possible to make budget. It was a popular topic of discussion and motivator throughout the year.

In addition to "profit sharing", We had a "method improvement" program that paid serious amounts of money to any staff member at any level who envisioned and recommended specific ways to improve the bottom line--usually by way of cost savings. The awards were a percentage of the estimated (and documented) annual savings that would result from implementation of the employee's suggestion. The largest one I remember was $10,000. Awards were announced by senior officers in the most visible way possible--at a full meeting of the staff of the recipient employee's department.

All employees received company logo lapel pins and were encouraged to wear them at work. Employees (all levels) who reached a 25-year service anniversary were awarded (at a "all hands on deck" departmental ceremony) a golden lapel pin. Gold pins were worn proudly.

There were many other types of team-building and employee recognition, but one personal experience stands out. We had just received our regulator's exam report for a compliance exam that went without a hitch. The transmittal letter basically said "keep up the good work." At the same time, our commercial bankers were struggling with what turned out to be the biggest, ugliest loss in the company's history. I'm on the phone in my office when someone tapped on the open door. I turned and found the president of the bank (my boss's boss) patiently standing there waiting to talk to me. That had never happened before, and I quickly ended my call. He said he wanted to thank me personally because it was so good to get some good news at a time when everything else was going from bad to worse. He thanked me for all the work that yielded that "no comment" exam report, shook my hand, and left. A few well-spent minutes of his day made me feel like the most important member of the team!

David - I'll be the first to apologize if it seems like those of us in this conversation are piling on. That's not the way we do things here. I appreciate your willingness to share, freely, your knowledge and years of experience. I have always looked forward to opportunities to discuss, even debate, topics that don't have a single "right answer" and it's always fun and educational to have a true expert on the other side of the exchange. If nobody ever kicked me in the backside and said "you're wrong" I would never have grown professionally. The topic of corporate culture is very important...there's no way to count the number of BOL discussions that included laments that the compliance officer lacks the support and respect necessary to do the job.

Dave - that was not intended as a post against you or your point, but rather just an example of some bad leadership i have experienced. Apologies if you took it as directed to you.

Much like the real world, BOL has tons of differing opinions, and if you take a little from each, you can probably find a working solution.

Culture is such a difficult beast to get their heads around. It comes from the top. I do not believe leadership is learned, but it can be modified (ever so slightly). I have met a lot of people in leadership positions who lead well and lead poorly.

From my experience every leader I have ever met who tries to lead by taking leadership classes or listening to a mentor who says "to this, or do that" is a poor leader.

I have also met David several times in person. While it is difficult to judge a person based on limited contact, he appears to be the type of person who would be great to work for. I have attended his seminars and see how he interacts with his staff. It is no surprise to me that most of his staff have been with him for a long time given the amount of travel they must endure. If I were rolling the dice, I would bet that David is a very good leader and has developed a good (if not great) culture.

With all due respect to David, I would not equate spouting off in a relatively anonymous online board about work related pet peeves with gossiping in the office. I think everyone would agree building and maintaining a strong team is critical for a positive workplace environment and a productive staff. Does it drive me nuts that the fridge is stuffed full with large lunch bags by 8am every morning? Yes. Does that mean I am gossiping and a bad employee? No. Just venting. Staff comes in to me to "vent" at times and I need to make a decision-is it a serious issue we need to address further or are they having a bad day and just need to get it off their chest?

I am sure we all have horror stories of managers, coworkers or subordinates that were gossipers, lazy, disrespectful, etc. As others have said, it starts from the top. If management doesn't support team building and addressing legitimate issues brought to their attention, the cycle will continue regardless of how many forced fun events your group attends.

I was speaking with a friend of mine that works at a small bank in Western NY about this and he agrees. Whether it is a very small organization like he is in or some larger institutions, management needs to nurture and support a strong work environment.

Just my 2 cents.

Nevermind...let's just drop it.

Yup! Good luck to the OP and that the situation works out for them!

OP here, thank you ALL for such amazing and thoughtful feedback. Clearly we are a passionate bunch here!

There's been no further discussion on this team building outing, but I'll be sure to keep everyone updated, LOL.

I just wanted to say that for the record, this isn't my first rodeo. I've held just about every position in the retail side of a bank. I'd never toot my own horn, but I think if anyone were asked to describe me in a few words, eventually "team player" would escape someone's lips.

Many above were able to articulate what I really wanted to say: in my opinion, a WORK team building should happen at WORK. It's not that I don't like my coworkers, but that's what they are: coworkers. I am not Facebook friends with anyone at my company. I'm friendly with everyone, but would consider none of them to be good friends. I have plenty of those. I guess what I'm really trying to say is I like my business life business, and my personal life personal.

OP again, so I literally just jinxed myself.

No sooner did I hot "send" when the subject of TEAM BUILDING came up again.

Ready? A pub crawl.

hey, if i would have known it was a pub crawl instead of bowling, my answers would have been different, just let me know date and time

actually, a much worse idea than the last one...tell him you are 7th Day Adventist, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, or any other religion that does not allow alcohol. better yet, you are a recovering alcoholic and don't want to relapse.

I love a good pub craw!!!!

But not with anyone I work with. Ever.



And I think this right here is the perfect summation of what many of are saying. There certainly are people that enjoy and thrive off of after work 'fun' events with their coworkers, and I certainly enjoy volunteering with coworkers on bank sponsored volunteer events, but that is enough for me as well.

"hey, if i would have known it was a pub crawl instead of bowling, my answers would have been different,"
That's funny stuff Happy!

Just go talk to the manager. Be honest and explain you are uncomfortable with the bar scene and not being paid for an after hours event. See what s/he has to say. The best thing you can do is communicate.