So we recognize this fact and try to mitigate it in a few ways:
- We structure the offsite week so that Mon - Thu is meetings and Fri is a fun day. This means attendees can leave on Thu night or Fri morning if they'd rather re-join their families sooner.
- We actively encourage our team to prioritize their families above their work and make it clear that attendance is preferred but optional. One of our colleagues just had a baby 2 weeks ago and no one would expect him to attend.
- We do what we can to make our meetups remote-friendly. If someone can join remotely, we use a Meeting Owl[2] to give them a better remote experience. It's not perfect, nor is it Cisco Telepresence, but it seems a lot better than everyone present jumping on a Zoom.
- We try to work around colleagues when possible. We recently held the meet up in my home town when my wife was in her third trimester and really needed me home!
For the rest of the year, we enjoy the benefits of being remote, among which flexibility is ranked high.
Amazon reviews [1] gives good understanding of how the product works in combination with their demo video [2].
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Meeting-Owl-Conference-Automatic-Spea...
Will he actively be told not to attend? Often this sort of thing is implied to be mandatory.
It would also be perfectly clear from context (and probably overt comments as well) that attending is not only not expected but would be looked down upon.
Of course, the counterpoint here is that people still need to add value and get things done. So we also very much celebrate shipping and moving the ball forward each week.
I've now got a 7 year old and twin 2 year olds. They're a handful and a half, even on a good day. They're my family, much as I like most of them my coworkers are not. My wife really struggles with the kids at times and we don't have much of a support network to lean on. She called me just yesterday from the other side of town because one of the two year olds was refusing to get into his car seat. I ended up driving there to help her.
I basically turn down anything that requires an overnight stay now. I get away with it but it definitely trades on what political capital I have.
This is something I have come to really despise about working in tech. It doesn't matter if it's office beers, or the board games group, or retreats, etc... It's something that I feel is almost inappropriate in regards to my personal time which is fleeting the older I get.
> "keep the company young" ageism tactics
Anecdotally, I've found it's less ageism and more building a "club" of who's in/out. If you're someone who wants to keep colleagues at arms length (ie: strictly business) it turns into a huge problem, and it will definitely come up in your 1-on-1's.
It plays out like this: "We're noticing you're missing team events - why is that? Is everything alright? We'd like people to be team players!"
To which I always want to respond: "Well Bob, at the end of the day we're all replaceable to those up the chain and I know it's 100% in my worst interest to blend my personal life and my work life. I don't want to drink with you, I don't want to share my personal opinions, and I am not here to 'make friends'. I want to keep work at work, and home at home."
I would never say the above because that's grounds for an instant conflict, ie: "I'm not here for the koolaid, I'm here for the paycheck". Best way I've found to address it is to outright lie and say you suffer from social anxiety.
Business travel is both a personal preference and part of the bigger career direction tradeoffs that must be weighed when choosing an employer.
"I have a family" isn't something to hide behind when your job includes a small amount of travel. It's something that can be accommodated and planned for.
If I need to stay late a few hours after work than normal, it requires immediate triage. If my wife has a busier than normal week, it may mean I go in later to the office or come home earlier, at a minimum we will lose sleep that week on meal prep etc.
She did a retreat while breastfeeding and it require her to come home each night so our son could eat. She went on a work trip and I flew out with her and the baby and took 2 vacation days (still breast feeding)
Tbh, a non-local retreat i.e. more than an hour drive, and either of us would skip it.
Its just not a nessisary business practice and IMO is agist.
Its hard having a family and having two working parents. Offsites make it harder.
If you are going to organize one, you should understand that while they have real value, they also have a real cost for participants and their time should be treated like gold.
Overall, I'm not sure if you are organizing it, but if you are, you should be very sure that all those offsites are not too taxing on your team. I'd personally be very frustrated, and I know coworkers at other publicly traded companies I have worked for complain about offsites, but not to their managers.
i.e. you think they are helpful but secretly your team or coworkers are very unhappy.
The biggest issue is that it often is a week if pointless koolaid drinking, with a huge carbon footprint at that.
I can't imagine doing something similar for work. Are they paying you all the time you are away (after all, you are basically "at work" the whole 24 hours).
It just seems another way to squeeze more house out of people.
That's the normal life for a lot of people who attend conferences etc. If that's not for you, that's fine. Just don't take that sort of job.
--> Many of them have fun elements to it to relax the attendees and give them a break. Infact, breaking the regular 'work more' pattern is the key aspect.
--> Any trip is always hectic - whether work or personal. If you can get more done during a 3 days trip which will help you to spend more time with the family once you are back, it is better in some way. Right :)
Now that I have a family, the prospect would be a big fat "No" for me, unless we're all encouraged to bring our families.
My SO's employer went to Mallorca to party for a week when the company was smaller (200ppl?). I like our approach much more.
In our case, there are team members who can't attend the retreat and we are fine with it. There is no evaluation/judgment happening. But we encourage them to be there to learn and understand faster
There is no obligation (ethically, or legally) for companies to accommodate everyone.
Certain groups, yes. But not everyone.
Vote with your feet.
"Shut up or leave if you don't like it" is a very bad form of argument imho.
My fellow attendees at these events are in their 30s through 50s (and for all I know, some might be in their 60s or 20s).
I don’t see ageist discrimination around business trips to be honest. If business travel isn’t for you for whatever reason, there are an enormous number of jobs that don’t require or even offer business travel.
For distributed work, I actually think it's really important to budget and plan for F2F events. Again, if you prefer more of a 9-5 5 days limited travel job, maybe don't do that.
If you know ageism is rampant. Perhaps take this into consideration before selecting the tech industry?
There are other industries which are more family friendly. They might not pay as much, but that's the trade-off. You can't have both.
It's not like doing retreats or other things people with families don't like is what causes it to pay more.
I often see week long company retreats in far away lands listed as a positive/selling point on many company recruiting pages.
For many in their 20s, or single, it probably sounds great.
But there is definitely an unspoken pressure element to the whole thing for a certain class of individual.
Maybe I'm the only one, but I imagine if you have a family these retreats can actually be a negative. Perhaps they aren't mandatory, but surely it's not wise politically to miss them.
I feel like those with families might not want to spend a week away from the family in <insert-far-away-land>. For a variety of reasons.
Maybe some companies do a better job of catering for everyone/thinking about this. Perhaps it's not a problem.
But it just seems to me like at least some of them are another one of those "keep the company young" ageism tactics - whether on purpose or not.