I’ve heard people say, (paraphrased) “work is work: if your going to give me free time then let me go home.”.
On the other side, an impromptu surprise that you get to be relieved of your responsibilities for the day and go do something fun seems like it would be beneficial for people’s mental health and creativity.
Yet, one can imagine if someone had a sick child at home, or some other concern that infinitely more important than work that it might be a bit torturous to go out and try to have fun with your coworkers when you would rather, and rightly so, want to be home attending to the more important thing.
Although I would want to be the type of leader that I person would feel comfortable just telling that they needed to go home if such a matter of importance were to arise.
If you gave a person a choice at the beginning of their job between a day off or an office field trip, most would probably just choose an extra day off.
Yet, much like buying a gift card for someone you know would never spend money on themselves perhaps it could be a more memorable and helpful experience for them to go out and have fun with no responsibilities.
Yet this may simply be an expression of the lonely ness and desire for human connection that I personally feel, due the current circumstances of semi isolation (just me and my partner) in a new and strange city.
I am not a CEO, I just graduated and I’m working to get my first job. One day I would like to lead people, and perhaps this, per my lack of knowledge, seems a bit farcical, but I wanted to gather some opinions, thanks!
Everyone share the same hobby? Is it a paid or during work hours?
Make it during work hours and something all of the people can enjoy. We once had a brunch and then went to a local Madame Tussaud’s.
For a gaming company I’d suggest some gaming museum or tech fair.
As a worker‘s perspective, just make sure it’s on the clock and during work hours.
This is a good point— it should be during work hours, and yeah maybe doing a poll would make sure it’s something of interest to everybody would be a good thing— thanks!
I recommend including a “no thanks” style option in the poll. Avoid implying they have to choose from options they aren’t interested in.
I like how you think.
I think a trip to an arcade with a wide range of different vintage games.
“If you gave a person a choice at the beginning of their job between a day off or an office field trip”
This future CEO is absolutely not interested in paying people for this.
I realize it changes based on scale, but the Director for my group has periodic get-togethers for our ~19 person IT team. It’s only for a few hours, takes place at stereotypical “corporate event” places (think Dave & Busters, etc), is during work hours, and food is provided. It’s “requested attendance”, meaning if a remote employee can’t make it or someone has something going on, it’s no biggie. There’s some minor talk like company news/discussion, who got promoted, etc but mostly it’s just intended as a thank you to the entire team for our hard work. He even gives out small gifts to us, though that’s certainly not necessary! It’s also 100% paid for hourly associates. My company is far from perfect, but that’s the way to do it.
I think it’s actually insane to require people to go to an unpaid “recreational” event on their own time. I don’t even think it’s okay to politely ask, with no penalty!