Shared Hotel Rooms for Work

[CyCrazy]

This is an absurd rule. This isnt a middle school field trip. My boss would never mandate this thank god.

 

[throwittoblythe]

Through this thread I now have a personal investment in a topic that has nothing to do with me.

This is absolute ****. There's no way that sleeping in teh same room improves work culture. Zero chance. If you really want to improve culture, give everyone a big ol' per diem to go out and enjoy themselves. Have a nice meal together. Have some drinks together. Go see a game together. But there is nothing about the act of sharing a sleeping space that makes anyone closer together from a work culture standpoint. Total BS.

Agreed. I've talked with one of my coworkers and we've both concluded that this is polishing a turd. Just call a spade a spade: it's a cost-savings maneuver. Don't feed us lines about "culture" and "family" and "connecting with your teammates."

And yes, we said the same thing. If you want to control costs for work travel: give us all a per diem and let us do what we want. Don't force the issue by making people room together. Give me a reasonable per diem and if I want to spend an extra $30 to get a nicer room, that's on me.

 

[ScottyP]

UPDATE

I broached the topic with my boss today. I started with "Can you fill me in on this hotel sharing thing? What do you think of all that?"

His response was "I'm a big proponent of this. I think it is critical to our culture. Nobody likes it, including me. But I never regret doing it." Ok - so everyone hates it but it's a critical part of our culture?!

I told him I'm an extremely light sleeper and would struggle to get good rest if I'm with someone who snores. He said "Yeah, there are certain exceptions and this isn't a hard and fast rule. Just use your best judgment."

Basically the way I read it is: if I'm doing every work travel, you can probably skirt by with separate rooms. But when we do larger company meetings or trainings, it would be hard to not bunk with someone unless you have a very specific issue with it.

I'm calling BS on this. I would talk to HR about this first and then start looking for employment elsewhere, in my opinion. If this thing is so critical to their culture, then the company has some culture issues.

 

[8bitnes]

Yes. Our CEO made the argument in his announcement that this is extra money that goes back to the bonus pool so everyone benefits from it on their paycheck. So, if I bunk up and save the company $10,000 next year...divided amongst our 700 employees is $14 extra on my bonus. F THAT

Don't put it in a bonus pool then. Give it directly to those who share rooms. Share a room, you get a $75 bonus per occurrence. Don't want to share, we won't force it.
Something personal such as sleeping space should be an opt-in situation rather than seeking for a way to opt out

 

[throwittoblythe]

Through this thread I now have a personal investment in a topic that has nothing to do with me.

I'll add that I learned that this is a very one-sided topic! We are at 9 pages of responses now and it feels like 99.5% of it is "This is dumb. No company should do this."

 

[Bret44]

I hate the "We're a family" corporate church bull **** talk.

You wanna be family? Ok, let's have a fight at the Christmas party than *****.

 

[Clonefan32]

I'll add that I learned that this is a very one-sided topic! We are at 9 pages of responses now and it feels like 99.5% of it is "This is dumb. No company should do this."

I can handle alot but someone thinking you can't see through a line of bull**** has always bothered me. Just say you do it as a cost saving mechanism. Be honest. Throwing out a line of **** like "improving work culture" and "promotes a family atmosphere" and thinking your employees wont see right through it is so painfully disingenuous.

 

[laminak]

People certainly don't get more private in locker rooms with age.

Yep, the last time I belonged to a gym, it was like this:

 

[cdface]

****, I was writing emails and texting while I was on the table for a vasectomy a few weeks ago!

But really, it was just because it helped distract my brain from the pinching and pulling and poking, not because I felt I had to.

 

[mj4cy]

I need some advice on this…

I started at my current company in Fall 2020. Prior to COVID, they had a “shared hotel room” policy. Opposite sex are exempt, but basically the policy is “if you are traveling with someone else, you’re expected to share a room.” They just reinstated the policy this week.

The CEO’s line is all about “family culture” and “small company feel.” He did acknowledge the cost savings in his announcement, which I’m sure is the real driver.

I travel a lot for work; 1-2 nights every week. I’m probably alone 80% of the time but I will travel with someone else once every few months. I have to say, I am 100% against this policy. I like my privacy and honestly have a lot of anxiety around sharing a room with a coworker.

I should mention, this is not a startup. We have 700 employees and over $200M in revenue every year.

Anyone have some truthful and respectable ways to tell my boss I’m not on board?

A little surprising to hear about this especially as we're in similar lines of professions. I've never heard of this before. Our company has always just assumed we all get our own rooms (granted we're a smaller company in size). If they're going to require us to travel which takes us personal time, they want us to be comfortable is the goal I think.


I honestly would go to them and explain that you wanted to be treated like a professional and that you're an asset to the company. That traveling requires a mix of personal and company time and to be at your best during company time you want to have personal time/space to relax and take care of yourself.

If they are going to have you travel so much but not let you have your own room then they should ask themselves where the disconnect is.

 

[dosry5]

I don't travel for work much at all now, but used to fairly regularly. When I first started that gig I was around 30 and being new I went with the flow on things like dinners, drinks if that's what others were doing, etc. I automatically went along, wherever everyone else wanted to go was fine with me, whatever the group wanted to do was fine with me. Then over time when I'd built up enough cred I developed a policy that during work travel, once we were done with the client for the day, it was my time. Much of the time I traveled with cool people so I had no problem grabbing dinner, drink, etc. But there were trips when it wasn't a great group and I'd just tell them I was going to do my own thing for dinner, had stuff to catch up on, etc. It was awesome picking wherever I wanted to eat, drink, etc., and being done whenever I wanted to be done. I think they liked it just as much.

But sharing a room? That's insane. We'd book our own travel and I usually wasn't even on the same floor as my coworkers.

Imagine sharing a room with a hok fan…..ugh

 

[mj4cy]

Honest question - I understand the part about the no sharing with the opposite sex, but what if your coworker is gay? I'm sure that's come up for companies before. Just seems to me if you are requiring employees to travel for the benefit of your company, just pay for their own room.

 

[dosry5]

I have so many questions:

A) Who gets the remote?
B) Is there some kind of assumed/implied policy on using the bathroom?
C) Is the time of the alarm negotiated?
D) Do you discuss the temperature of the room?
E) When you unpack do you go straight to the dressers or do you talk through whose stuff goes where?
F) Does the sock on the door technique have application beyond college?

Who uses the dresser at a hotel? Are you some kind of animal? And yes, the bathroom issue….I have no desire to have my roomie shatting next to where I have to brush my teeth.

 

[Gonzo]

Imagine sharing a room with a hok fan…..ugh

The worst.

 

[wxman1]

There are just so many ways that this can backfire and just because it hasn't doesn't mean it won't. Any HR person with half a brain would be shutting this down. This leads me to think that there either is no HR involvement/they have been shown their place of hiring/firing only type of situation or they are just that dumb.

 

[cyclonespiker33]

Families have members of the opposite sex. Why can't a man share a room with a woman?

 

[Bader]

Families have members of the opposite sex. Why can't a man share a room with a woman?

 

[Dr.bannedman]

sharing rooms is high school ****.

Families have members of the opposite sex. Why can't a man share a room with a woman?

LUL wat

 

[throwittoblythe]

Honest question - I understand the part about the no sharing with the opposite sex, but what if your coworker is gay? I'm sure that's come up for companies before. Just seems to me if you are requiring employees to travel for the benefit of your company, just pay for their own room.

Funny you bring up this example because this was the exact scenario my boss mentioned when I asked him about this whole program.

Again, I am in the construction world. No shade meant by this, but "progressive" isn't the word that comes to mind when you think of laborers. Anyway, apparently they hired a guy and later learned that he was gay and they had him bunking with other crew guys, like always. It was an impossible situation because A) you can't out the guy to his crew mates and b) you can't just let him be the only one in a single room, as that would be singling him out. My boss honestly wasn't sure how they resolved it.

I said "This is the exact kind of scenario I would think we'd want to avoid."

 

[Clonefan32]

I am not kidding one bit when I said I just did that exact thing while typing a response that I eventually just gave up on.