Team Building Pain: Do I really have to trust-fall on Friday night?

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Question:

I like my coworkers just fine at 2 p.m. on Tuesday when I’m caffeinated and paid to be at work. I just don’t want to spend my Friday night racing around with a pool noodle or pasting a smile on my face in role-play games when I could be eating nachos in sweatpants.

Here’s the problem. Our company schedules a “voluntary” team-building event every quarter. Picture corporate kumbaya with trust falls, relay races, and scavenger hunts. And while emails describe these events as “voluntary,” managers look more favorably on those who attend, and shovel guilt-pie at the rest of us. Could you write something I can sneak onto my manager’s desk?

Answer:

You speak for thousands in your sweatpants-longing rebellion. A lot of employees feel trapped in the twilight zone of “optional” events that somehow determine whether they’re “team players.” The problem isn’t that employers want connection—it’s that they confuse forced fun with real bonding. Spoiler alert: nothing makes adults crankier than being told to clap along when they’d rather be home.

What Employees Know (But Managers Sometimes Forget)

1. Timing matters. A “voluntary” Friday night event competes with babysitters, second jobs, spouses, and sheer exhaustion. The fact that you’d rather binge Netflix than trust fall doesn’t make you antisocial—it makes you human.
2. Bodies matter. Not everyone wants to sprint in a relay race or squeeze into a kayak. Pregnancy, disability, chronic illness, bad knees—these are invisible to management until someone blows out an ACL on the company scavenger hunt. That’s not “team building.” That’s workers’ comp.
3. Boundaries matter. A camping trip with coworkers plus free-flowing alcohol? What could possibly go wrong besides sexual harassment claims, hangovers, and one unfortunate story that haunts you until retirement?

The Bottom Line

Team building works when it strengthens the muscles employees use at work. Cross-department problem solving. Conflict-management practice that doesn’t involve a rope course. Activities that support collaboration on the job and has a clear link to how the team functions. If you want solid examples of activities that accomplish this, check “pie” and “toxic popcorn” in chapter 6 of Managing for Accountability: A Leader’s Toolbox for Success, https://bit.ly/3T3vww8.

Managers that want to offer pure fun need to make voluntary real. No career penalties for employees who choose family, rest, or sanity over s’mores with their colleagues.

The Hidden Legal Landmines

Employers, here’s where the lawyers get twitchy:

• Disability, pregnancy, and age discrimination. Some activities leave out whole groups of employees. That’s exclusion, not inclusion.
• Religion. A weekend retreat may trample on religious observances.
• Wage and hour. Non-exempt employees? If they’re doing work-adjacent activities outside regular hours, you may owe overtime—whether you call it “fun” or not.
• Liability. If someone gets hurt doing your “optional” ropes course, guess whose insurance gets called? Yours.

The Fix

Employers who want true engagement should:

• Schedule team-building during regular work hours. Yes, it “costs” a few hours of productivity, but it saves resentment (and overtime).
• Choose activities that all employees, from marathon runners to chair-sitters, can comfortably do.
• Offer fun extras—bowling night, trivia at the brewery, paint-and-sip—as actual optional activities.
• Measure success by whether employees leave energized and laughing, not quietly plotting mutiny.

Back to You, Nacho Lover

Your instincts are spot-on. “Voluntary” should mean “free choice,” not “career booby trap.” If your managers can’t see the difference, maybe forward them this column—or better yet, let them experience the true power of team building by asking everyone to write down what they’d most like in a workplace event. (Spoiler: it won’t involve pool noodles.)

Until then, protect your Friday nights. You already spend forty hours a week with your team. Don’t let guilt or fear make you sacrifice precious nacho hours. © 2025 Lynne Curry, PhD, SPHR, SHRM-SCP