Being forced to stay overnight

Ian,

There are a few issues here. I agree with a lot of the foregoing:

-you are organising some kind of team dinner. Most companies would leave the shifts alone (i.e. if the event is a Thurs night, they would expect normal work on the Thu and Fr daytimes).

-what you appear to be doing is instructing the staff that they will attend a shift on thursday night from 7pm until 8pm the following day - subject to your employment contracts, this may be perfectly permissible.

-you are then instructing them to take the friday as holiday. Again, this is permissible.

-issues I can foresee are employees used to working 9-5 who simply cannot (maybe because of dependents) be away from their home from 6pm until 9am the following morning. They may be able to get chilcare from 6pm-11pm, but not overnight. Equally they may have pets etc that need to be fed.

I suggest you do what most companies do, which is to invite employees to a team dinner (emphasise that this is free food and wine provided by the company) and further offer to pay for employees choice of either a taxi home or a hotel room.

Personally, I would have them work on the friday (maybe be flexible with their start time) but possibly if this is a small company it is cheaper for you to close, and instruct them to take a holiday day.

Out of interest what level of staff are we talking here - as they way you treat factory staff may well be different to the way you treat execs

Ian
What you are proposing probably seems reasonable to you - you send your staff to a nice hotel, give them a nice dinner and ensure they don't drive home drunk by overnighting them and giving them the next day off. But you cannot enforce this and Kevin is entirely right.
Change tactics. Be honest with the staff. Tell them what you have organised , even that you have cocked up by making a wrong call, but that you realise you can't force them to do it. However, it would be nice if as many as possible could do it etc. And think a bit further too. What else might you do to make it possible for people to attend.
Derek Jones

Elaine

I agree with you, I dont think you can 'instruct' an employee to stay over night especially if they have commitments at home, which to some, come first, but if the hotel is paid for and day off is an extra' holiday day, plus you can 'persuade' as such that the evening would be beneficial to them and also, then you may get a bigger take up, but you cant make them stay.....or penalise them after for not staying.

Instruct? An employee is entitled to an uninterupted 11 hours break between finishing one day and starting the next day's duties. This is to allow them to address the work/life balance and take the appropriate rest break. IMO you are infringing on their freedom of movement and, possibly, their right to privacy.
Have you considered their familial commitments, religious beliefs, dietary requirements, medical requirements, interests outside work (yes, some sad people do have them) etc.
Have you considered the psychology of coercing employees to attend a 'social' gathering (or is it training, because it it's training it's work) with people they perhaps don't like and actually need a break from? How long will this working day actually last?
I know how I would react if my employer 'instructed' me I had to attend a training event dressed up as a social occasion, and then lose a days holiday the next day? Why, incidentally, do you need them to take a day's holiday? Are you expecting excessive drinking, or debauchery?

I would be very wary of "instructing" employees to do anything - there'll always be somebody who takes it badly. Why don't you offer, or suggest, instead? That way people have the option of saying no. Nobody likes to feel they are being pushed around - particularly by their employer - they feel that it takes away their autonomy. Just say that the hotel is paid for by you, the day's holiday is paid for by you (if it is), and leave them to make up their own minds. If you are going to mandate that the day's holiday must be taken from their allowance, you may be in trouble.

We wish to instruct that all our staff attend the staff dinner which is outside of some employees normal working day (they work 30hrs on a flexible rota system) also that they spend the night at a hotel at no expense to them and taking the following day as holiday. An employee has questioned whether we are infringing upon their employment rights. I believe that this is part of a whole day's training and team building. Am I right in stating that this is compulsory because of the training aspect, or are we infact nfrinfing on employee rights?

Comments very much appreciated