[pmg102]

Right but this suggests those things might be for your benefit when it looks to me like they're for team cohesion ie for the employers benefit. There's nothing wrong with that unless they're trying to portray those things as being for your benefit!

[pc86]

Exactly, pre-COVID we would go out for a group lunch maybe once every month or two. 7 or 8 people total. Everyone paid their own way so it wasn't seen as a benefit but everyone did acknowledge it as a good bit of team building/cohesion around something everyone was going to do anyway (eat) so it was much better than trying to do something after hours or on a weekend when we have better things to do, or during the work day when the company has better things for us to do.

[ghaff]

Yes, a multi-day team (weekday) offsite every now and then is fine (and probably beneficial). But, in general, weekend getaways and things like that are bad practices.

Normally I travel a lot so nights and at least parts of weekends away are pretty routine for me. But companies should attempt to minimize it to the degree possible.