Today the whole directorate met away from the usual offices in which we are based for a day of group learning, bonding and team building. Well that was the theory. This concept is relatively new to those of us who work in the health service, well certainly something that I had never experienced before about 4 years ago. I doubt there are too many people who do regular nursing jobs who go on such things, after all there is generally far too much work to be done when you are in clinical practice, and you have to wonder who would look after the wards and do the work if they did. I looked up ‘Awayday’ on Wikipedia to see where the idea came from and found this definition:
An Awayday is the term used in British business for a meeting, often of a whole department, project or sales team, which takes place off-site and away from the participants’ regular office surroundings, usually for a whole day or sometimes a weekend
The intention is to allow the meeting to focus on the particular task at hand without the participants being distracted by the demands which, if the meeting were held in the workplace, would normally be made on their attention by virtue of their positions.
The term derives from the name given to a cheap day return railway ticket (a substantially reduced two-way fare for off-peak travel) after pricing by time of travel was introduced on the British railway network in the 1960s
Our directorate only really came into being at the beginning of this year, and the 3 awaydays that we have had to date have been good in terms of getting to know each other, looking at our objectives and working out what that means for us individually and in terms of our smaller teams. Because we are in the health service and we do not have money to burn they last a day, take place on work premises and any refreshments (including our lunch out today) are funded by our selves. They are not some kind of perk or freebie but they do involve being away from work and one has to question just how effective they might be in the long run in doing anything really useful other than improving the working relationship you can have with each other because of the fact you know each other better.
We do stuff like that here, but usually only fun stuff. They call it “Team Building” and we go bowling or to see movies. I don’t really understand the point of it, but I’ve worked a lot of places that do it so someone must see value in it!
Done both these and they serve different functions generally.
Team building days are ust that – to build the team spirit. They don’t necessarily have much to do with work stuff other than the people you go with.
Awaydays are work focussed and tend to involve budget holding/accountable management people.
The awayday always appeals to me as I’m generally on the floor any other time and at the end of a mobile phone. So being incommunicado makes a great difference to the work flow that you can get into during time out.
I’m surprised you’ve not heard or seen them before Julie as they’ve been used in various health places I’ve worked for some time since the 90s. i think they serve a great function, even if it is only networking (and don’t underestimate the power of that simply in rejuvenation and a reality check), but it gives you some thinking time, breathing space and sharing of ideas and issues opportunity. It’s also a useful form of peer supervision. The only time I’ve seen it used pointlessly is when no agenda or purpose is set and it’s just arranged cos it seemed like a good idea at the time.
Actually as I say in my post I have been involved in away days for 4 years. I have even arranged my own for my own team. I know what they are about but it is just that the most recent one was bizarre and kind of odd. This made me look for a definition etc. One of the problems we have here is that we have been through 2 years of turmoil, cuts to services and to jobs, I even lost my own job in the process. This has made me kind of re-evaluate such things and question their value. I do believe they work, but still last weeks one was kind of odd.