Corporate integration or blackmail in Poland's companies?

A tredny featrue of today's corproate world are integration meet-ups -- outings, pincics, recreation and entertainment for emyployees which usually turn out to be giant booze-ups.. The declared purpose of this is that employees who socialise together work better together at the office.

A coprotate insider, whose name I am not at liberty to metnion, told me that was the explanation for suckers. The real reason is employee cotmrol. As a for instance he mentioned a worker who is reluctant to perform some task the boss has assigned. The boss then whips at a photo from the latest meet-up showing the reluctant married employee cosying up to the office bombshell, the lovely single pani Kasia and says: 'Maybe your wife would be interested in seeing this picturer.' It'sd also easier to pry infroamtion from inebriated employees anotui themselves and their workmates.

Only shows to go everything has a down side.
Like, at the begining of independence, the young Poles rushed home and proudly told their folks: My boss gave me a free cellphone and a band to hang it from, not realising it was actually a leash.

Part of all this is to do with the employees' social fund. Some companies spend a portion of it on integrations. They are usually very popular among staff.


Yes!

The worst thing is the sort of person who wears their staff ID card on a ribbon round their neck while they're travelling to or from work. The modern equivalent of a ring through their nose.

Give anyone free food and drink and you'll be pretty popular. The point was: is what my corporate insider told me an exaggeration or sporadic thing or does it occur with fair regularity? Namely surveillance and veiled interrogation in a relaxed, happy-go-lucky liquored-up atmosphere: 'Hey Zbig. let's have a drink... By the way I've been hearing things about our good friend Marek. What about you?'

Mostly they're just weekends away, without anything dodgy. What happens on tour stays on tour.

Pure exaggeration from somebody who objects to paying for his staff to let their hair down.

I can't recall any interrogation or otherwise at our integration parties.

I recall playing ridiculous games and shooting shotguns in the dark, but...

Quite. Gossip, infighting and power struggles can happen anywhere - the pub after work, at the watercooler, or just staff socialising in their free time. As I say, the popularity of 'integrations' in Poland has a lot to do with the social fund system. That and a long tradition of works' holidays.

I'd assume that the integration party idea comes straight from Communism?

Whatever anyone says, I'm convinced that there exists a section of society that enjoyed their employer-funded jaunts.

I should think that most if not all enjoyed it - their families too. Some of those osrodki are great fun. I go to them myself at least once yearly.

Yes, but that section tends to not include the employers who pay for the things, which bring us back to the laughable lie told to the OP.

Most companies I know come up with these employee get togethers to gain some points on the "best place to work" ladder.
Blackmail is really a stretch, mostly because everyone will know if you got drunk and made an ass of yourself at the company picnic.
As far as these get-togethers being a booze-up, that is not my experience either.
All companies I know of are too concerned with their liabilities, and will try to limit the imbibing rather then promote it.
Nobody really needs to resort to these methods. The only reason to be so paranoid is if you're not a desirable employee. Then, everybody's out to get you.

Find something you like to do, and do it well is the best recipe.

Integrating parties are usually stressful and full of hypocrisy - i can't really make friends with my work-buddies, because im forced to compete with them everyday. Fortunately my company doesn't make it obligatory to take a part in it.

Hey, Alex - is 3-d printer considered a CNC machine?

That's quite a strange statement. Personally, I co-operate with my colleagues.

Some people claim 3D printing is CNC, some say that its an exact reverse of CNC because CNC technique usually removes material to create a desired element, and 3D printing creates this material/whole product from a scratch. It's a matter of definition, i guess.


My company joins cooperation with a constant competition.

Thanks, Alex


Maybe he works setting up machines in production.
One place where I found cooperation virtually impossible is on manufacturing floor. Caste system rules there.

Competition in what way! Surely that's all the more reason to get along well.


I used to recruit CNC Operators to go to the UK - absolutely tons of applicants.

I am not a CNC operator.

And quite a lot of other people involved in that field.

Does everyone get to go on these Integrations?
In my experience they are worse than the plague 95% don't want to be there. There is also the point that forced class integration can be a disgruntling experience especially for the working class.

If the Bosses wanted to lavish largesse on people they would give them a pay rise.

I go to most of the evening ones but tend to swerve the weekends away.


You're missing the point (or more probably you're ignorant of the point): in Poland companies are required to pay a certain amount in the company social benefit fund, that money is used for evening/weekend events and weekends away, etc. The money cannot be given as salary.

I do. Once I got sucked into an organizing committee for one of these things, since then I go out of respect for others that had to work on them.

That said, on the one I helped organize, we got them a cool young band, surfing lessons and kayaks.

And not infrequently for English lessons.

It all depends where you work. My other half saves up all our opera/ballet/theatre tickets and cashes them in once a year for a percentage of the ticket price.


The original idea was well intentioned and much about returning to the workers all the fruits of their labour. There are thousands of holiday camps round PL which were set up for works holidays - very often the first time anyone had had anything like a holiday and nowadays fondly remembered.


Agreed.

You are right I didnt know that.


I'm sure it was grand, I just don't staff organised things.

My worst nightmare would be to be compelled to go on a team building thing...........lashing a few barrels together and rowing to the island to dig up lunch. The very idea makes me shiver

Edit


Relatives of my friends chose to go to one of those camps a few years ago, they are reasonably well off and didn't need to. I don't know if the camp was subsidised or was now a wholly private concern.

I very much enjoyed team building: I convinced my team to forget about the rope bridges and other bollocks like that in favour of strolling back to a pub we'd passed where I'd get the first round in.

Mine are fine, but they are just fooling about, playing silly games with colleagues and drinking beer. Firing shotguns in the dark was one of the more...interesting things I've ever done.

The ones where people are forced into actually doing something like building things and getting wet/cold are no fun at all. I've heard that the latest craze is to put teams through miserable weekends where they're forced to exist in "extreme" conditions to bond as a team - fine and well for professional athletes, but for office workers?

Sounds like a good decision


That gives you just cause to climb the clock tower before dawn with several boxes of ammo

Many of those things are just a visit to somewhere interesting, a barbecue and several drinking sessions.

My uncle went on one of those. He'd been told that everybody would have their phones and wallets taken off them and so put a second phone, a credit card and some cash down the front of his pants; once they were dropped off he phoned for taxis and took his team off to a B&B at his expense, obviously via the pub. His team now love him.

Around here, these endurance competitions are a craze as well. But nobody's forcing anyone to sign up, office workers seem to line up voluntarily to participate in Tough Mudder, Mud Run etc.