The Work Clinic

I once worked for a company that had "beer thirty" every Friday. The executives would purchase large amounts of beer, wine and snacks and place them on a table in front of their offices at 4:30pm every Friday.

I think the point was to keep employees from leaving early. Which is weird because instead of leaving they just stayed at work but stopped working and started drinking.

At any rate, about 30% of our workforce were minors and 99% drove their cars to and from work. You can imagine what an HR nightmare this was. I fought to have this tradition abolished - or at least replaced with non-alcoholic beverages - to no avail. I didn't work there long.

I think have as many booze ups as you want to celebrate team success. If people have worked hard and they want to celebrate by getting merry then I have no problem with that as long as they don't drive, they don't insult each other and the customers, and they don't drive home.

Let the team know that a social rave up is an extension of duties and then enjoy! We cannot live life like sticks in the mud always. Why is it so often that HR are the ones that seem a little square? Loosen up HR. It's the medicine many of you need!

The "booze up" was every single Friday and it wasn't for celebrating team success. No precautions were taken to safegaurd employees from themselves, the community from drunk drivers or the company from liability.

I have no problem with employees going to dinner with clients, having alcohol with their meal and the company paying for it. I have no problem throwing a party that involves alcohol to celebrate success, as long as precautions are taken.

However, setting up a bar AT the office during the work day is a bad idea. I'm not 100% sure what the laws and trends are in the UK but in the US it is against the law for those under 21 to drink alcohol; for those 21 and over to purchase alcohol for/serve it to those under 21; and to continue to serve alcohol to a person who is visibly intoxicated. Those who serve alcohol (be it a private party at someone's home, a bar, restaurant, etc) can and are held liable for accidents that occur as a result of someone driving drunk and getting into an accident.

Advising the company of significant risk - yes. Stick in the mud - no. Just ask anyone who has lost a loved one to a drunk driving accident (17,602 deaths in the US in 2006 which accounts for 41% of traffic fatalities that year per http://www.madd.org/stats/11921).

I’m an employee get me out of here!

Team building events are becoming increasingly extreme and inventive. The days of conferences in hotels with dinner and late night drinking (with its own associated problems) have given way in many industry sectors (e.g. sales) to extreme sporting and survival events. The purpose of such events can be multi-faceted and can range from straightforward team building to a formal assessment of how colleagues work together or under pressure.

A recent report of such a team building event (which verged on boot camp meeting to “I’m a celebrity get me out of here” concerned a weekend trip to a ‘rustic’ lodge in the Scottish Highlands. No real information was provided to the team in question, but they felt obligated to go, not least due to the proximity of their year end bonus reviews. When the mixed sex team arrived after a marathon trek through the mountains, they discovered ‘rustic’ actually meant no flushing toilets, no running water or showering facilities and insufficient beds (which inevitably led to colleagues being forced to bunk down with each other). After a hellish night, the sleep deprived team were expected to undertake tasks designed to measure their performance under pressure with strong insinuations that their performance may affect matters such as bonus and career progression.

Needless to say not everyone involved was happy with what went on. Does this mean, however, that such events are inappropriate in an employment context? Not necessarily. Such an event may be excellent at achieving the aim of team building, but certain safeguards should be put in place by the employer to reduce the possibility of allegations of discrimination, harassment and breaches of trust and confidence (which could lead to claims for constructive unfair dismissal).

Such safeguards should include:
1. At the outset, such an event should not be used to measure performance of members of staff and certainly it should never impact upon factors such as career progression and bonuses. This will almost always be unfair and could be discriminatory.

2. Employees should be told in advance of what they should expect. Often it is the case that these events are made all the more exciting due to the element of surprise. However, if, as in the case above, the employees are to endure ‘extreme’ conditions, they should at least be made aware of the personal hygiene and sleeping facilities that will be provided (or lack thereof). If an employee is not comfortable with what is on offer, they should be able refuse without any repercussions.

3. Employers must be mindful of potential discrimination. Without being too general, extreme events especially those of a physical and ‘rustic’ nature would often appeal to men more then women and employees with a disability would also be disadvantaged and this needs to be taken into consideration. Also any event which forces employees into each others personal space (such as insistence on bed sharing) could give rise to allegations of harassment and discrimination. Employers always need to be reminded that events which revolve exclusively around alcohol, which are often accompanied with pressure to get very drunk, can also be discriminatory.
4. The timing of events may be discriminatory. After work and weekend events potentially discriminate against working parents and religious holidays and customs should be considered.

5. Employees should be able to scream “I’m an employee get me out of here”. This is especially the case when the event is in the middle of no-where or indeed overseas. To force an employee to endure extreme conditions or undertake “challenging” tasks will almost certainly result in a grievance on their first day back in the office and potentially a claim for constructive unfair dismissal!

6. Finally, always ensure that a variety of team building events take place at varying time and of differing natures to ensure that what is offered does not exclude certain employees.

Susan Thompson Partner and Adam Hugill, Employment Solicitor at leading West End firm Magrath & Co.

Some of us could have died that night or at least been seriously injured! But the HR folks at my then employer either didn’t know or didn’t care about our evening with the senior management of the company.

I worked with an organization where the corporate culture encouraged that significant amounts of alcohol be consumed during lengthy dinners. Often these dinners were during industry trade shows but there always seemed to be a reason to tie-one-on! During the night in question, we met for drinks in a bar and followed up with dinner, during which I consumed more alcohol than I would normally drink in a whole year. The scary part of this is that we all drove back to our hotels. We were lucky, very lucky, that all of us reached our destinations without incident. We nursed pounding headaches the following day but that was the extent of our injuries. It didn’t take me long to realize that this job was potentially hazardous to my health and wellbeing and I chose to move on.

I don’t blame the company because nobody forced me to drink or eat anything but things certainly could have turned very badly. Just consider if one of us had hit and killed a pedestrian or crashed and killed ourselves.

The law varies throughout the world but I suspect that the underlying principal to consider is to limit liability. If you ask your legal counsel if people should be allowed to drink alcohol while on company business, most would say not. Clearly, if nobody drinks then the risk of any problem caused by drinking excessively will be eliminated. So that’s the safest thing to do: eliminate all drinking while on company time. But is that practical? Consuming alcohol is such an integral part of most forms of hospitality that there likely would be an outcry of discontent if such consumption were limited or eliminated.

There are various ways to attempt to limit alcohol consumption. I worked once for a large manufacturing company that liked to have all-hands events. One of the most popular was a beer and bratwurst lunch. The way that the company attempted to limit alcohol consumption was to issue tickets that could be redeemed for beer. Each person was limited to just two. Did this work? Not really. What happened was that the folks who didn’t drink beer gave their tickets to the people who did. From a legal perspective, the company had at least attempted to limit alcohol consumption to two beers. This was clearly a better situation than an open-bar but still more risky than the no alcohol alternative.

One organisation I worked for took an entire 30 strong department away for a teambuilding event which included lots of outdoor activities such as white water rafting, orienteering, abseiling and an adventure course high up trees.

One person almost drowned (seriously) after getting trapped underneath a boat in the rapids.
Another person had a panic attack half way down the abseiling cliff and needed medical attention.

But far far worse. The tree course was 30 feet up in the tree tops. It involved going across single rope and swing bridges between he trees holding on to only a single rope above your head. The Senior Manager of the Department froze" with fear on tree number 2. He couldn't go forward and couldn't go back. And he certainly couldn't go down. As his team called out "encouragement" from below he stayed stuck there hugging the tree for some time until an instructor climbed up to help. However nothing was going to get him to move. Eventually the instructor rigged up a harness and he was lowered, humiliatingly , to the ground, clutching the tree the whole way down, in full view of his staff.

Needless to say that department stayed in nice, safe, ground level hotels for any future teambuilding events.

A wine tasting corporate entertainment company named taste of the vine hold wine tasting events regularly. These are organised however, so no one is driving.