Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 50 total)
  • How involved are you in your work's "society"?
  • TrailriderJim
    Free Member

    We all go to work to earn a crust, try and make a difference, strive for success, or whatever. Lately, I’ve found the place where I work is putting more and more importance on how its employees contribute to its society. For instance, public praise is given more often for seemingly acts of good will than core business successes.

    Bake some cakes and bring them in for everyone and you’re a legend. Bring some new business in and you’re doing your job.

    I’m exaggerating but does anyone else have this sort of situation and how do you feel about it and act?

    tomhoward
    Full 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.

    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’

    thepurist
    Full Member

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

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    DrJ
    Full Member

    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.

    badllama
    Free Member

    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. 🙂

    CountZero
    Full Member

    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.

    sbob
    Free Member

    Work in a traditional boozer, so the society of the business is the business.

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    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

    Phil_H
    Full Member

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

    binners
    Full Member

    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! 😀

    therag
    Free Member

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

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    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

    chewkw
    Free Member

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

    Ya, plenty but I ain’t joining them for publicity nor do I encourage them.

    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.

    ^^^ Absolutely true.

    ade9933
    Free Member

    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 🙂

    cornholio98
    Free Member

    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…

    chewkw
    Free Member

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

    We got that too (in fact we got all of them) which is now slowly being used against people rather than then initial “feel good spirit”.

    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.

    ade9933
    Free 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.

    chewkw
    Free Member

    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. [/quote]

    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. 😆

    aP
    Free Member

    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..

    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.

    mikewsmith
    Free Member

    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.

    ade9933
    Free Member

    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.

    Here’s a Forbes article on it too

    Good luck! Have you tried more cake 🙂

    aP
    Free Member

    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.

    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!

    RichPenny
    Free Member

    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)

    Inbred456
    Free Member

    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.

    P-Jay
    Free Member

    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.

    ssbnreso
    Free Member

    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!

    wobbliscott
    Free Member

    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.

    km79
    Free Member

    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.

    ade9933
    Free Member

    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.

    Pyro
    Full Member

    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.

    [/quote]

    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.

    perchypanther
    Free Member

    I hate people

    gordimhor
    Full Member

    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.

    glasgowdan
    Free Member

    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.

    VanHalen
    Full Member

    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

    davidtaylforth
    Free Member

    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”.

    Ming the Merciless
    Free Member

    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.

    john_drummer
    Free Member

    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!

    whitestone
    Free Member

    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.

    Northwind
    Full Member

    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.

    slowoldman
    Full Member

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

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