Since I am, once again, receiving this question with some regularity due to the economic downturn that continues, I want to reiterate my position and solicit the opinions of readers on the issue of requiring employees to share rooms during business travel.
Should employers ask employees to share rooms on business trips? (It's a regularly received question because readers are uncomfortable with the prospect.)
This reader had been asked to attend a four-day conference and room with a fellow employee. The reader was upset and uncomfortable with this request. However, she felt that attending the conference was also important. She was looking for my thoughts on the subject of companies requiring employees to share rooms on business trips. I'm also sure she was seeking reasons to share with her employer about why this is a bad practice.
As with any HR topic, various practitioners have differing views. My normally appreciated AHI Newsletter offered a rather snippy view about employees sharing rooms on business trips with which I completely disagree.
In my contrary view, employees should never be asked to share a room with a coworker, not under any circumstances including saving money during tough economic times. While I'm not certain it's a legal issue - although I can certainly conjure up harassment scenarios - it is a respect issue.
Let's face it. If you respect your employees, your employees should not have to listen to a coworker snore, smell their stinky socks, work around their toiletries in the bathroom, share the soap in the shower, listen in on their phone calls, deal with their clothing and hygiene habits, or put up with their late night work habits.
An employee who is giving up hours of his or her free time, and spending time away from the family for a business purpose, should have a private room to retire to for breaks and in the evening. The employee should be able to call home without an audience, drink a few cocktails without a disapproving observer, work until the wee hours of the morning, or call it an early night without worrying about the needs of a coworker.
Employees who have just spent breakfast, lunch, and dinner together plus attended all day meetings with fellow employees, deserve a place for solitude and rejuvenation. Sharing a room is not a team building event and it may result in damaged work relationships even if both of the employees are respectful and mindful of adult behavior.
Business travel is stressful enough, and your employees are already voluntarily giving you hours of their time, without adding one more layer of potential stress and offensiveness. Give your employees the respect they deserve. Unless good friends ask to room together, employees should never be asked to share rooms.
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Susan,
Although I can undertand your position on the above scenerio, there are certainly additional scenerios to consider. Our cableing guys would much rather share a room and have the work then to turn down the work due to the costs. I think employees should certainly have a say instead of assume. Some employees just don’t care how the next person spends their down time or shares the soap!
I recently was in a situation where I shared a room. A group of us arrived at the hotel to find that one person’s room had not been reserved by the admin. The hotel was booked, and there were openings down the street at another hotel. As we were sharing a rental, I said that I would share.
After doing so, I realized it has been quite sometime since I had a roommate other than my husband, and it is not something I want to do again. All the little inconveniences are enough to drive you crazy- whether it is sharing the bathroom or the TV remote!
Just because you work together, doesn’t mean that you should have to share a room and sleep together at a convention !
No company should even suggest that employees share rooms. If the company cannot afford separate rooms, then don’t send a many people to the meeting. I think that is very brazen of a company to even suggest that employees share a room. That’s stepping over the line. Everyone needs privacy.
I retired from the Air Force after twenty years. I traveled for almost ten years as a consultant and as a direct hire. I have now served seven years as a State employee. The only time I was required to share a room or apartment was during my time in the Air Force. After I obtained the rank of Senior Non-Commissioned Officer, I was afforded the privilege of having my own room on temporary duty assignments. I have never shared a room with another employee unless I voluntarily did so. A person’s privacy is the only thing they have and violation of that “privacy” during non-duty hours should never be a condition of employment. Employers who cannot afford the expense of a single room for an employee that has to be away from their domicile should rethink their value they place on the “Human Resource” who is generating the “Revenue” for the company or entity.
Walmart is famous for this. I have had to share rooms with complete strangers that range from one who had her friends show up and drink in the room until 2am; another who talked on the phone until ndawn, when I asked her to please stop, she went into the bathroom and just got louder, others who left the room a wreck, used all of the towels. I just hated to travel and tried to get out of it anytime I had to go anyplace when working with them. I was a regional manager in HR I would have expected better treatment. It was just awful and one of the many reasons I resigned. No respect for their employees, It’s all about profit and making money for overseas companies.
My company recently had her retreat and some employees were asked to share rooms. What we did was to pair friends together and they all didn’t mind at all. My opinion is that if they get along, then you let them share.
I worked for a company where you were told you would share a room. I snore and it can be quite loud due to a medical condition. I shared a room with a co-worker and all I heard was how loud I snored and was teased all the time about it. I have thick skin and can take it, but I don’t think that I should have been asked to share a room with someone I didn’t really know very well. Needless to say, I am no longer with that company. I don’t have to share a room with my new job and when I asked about it, the HR Director looked at me strangely and said that we get our own rooms! And the company is a small company. Great place to work!!!
We are crossing this bridge right now. My question is: They are requiring department heads to share rooms with subordinates (It fell that way due to same sex rooms). As a department head, are wet putting ourselves in a situation where a subordinate could falsely accuse a supervisor of inappropriate actions. Then this Department head/supervisor’s career could be devastated. There would be no witness no way to combat the accusation. Then the company would also be included in a lawsuit for forcing the room sharing?? Am I off Base with this…seems like basic risk management would avoid supervisors “Sleeping” with subordinates??
My position on employees sharing rooms has never changed. Employees should not be required to share rooms with another employee – ever. You create more problems than you solve and it is insulting and uncomfortable for employees.
I agree wholeheartedly. There is no valid excuse for forcing people to share rooms – even when someone suggests that the profit margin on the work would force them to turn down the work (which I *strongly* doubt).
Privacy is a necessity of civilized human life.
The excuses given are lame rationalizations.
I worked for two large retailing chains…one did require shared rooms and one didn’t. While I wasn’t thrilled with the one who did, as I’m a private person and like my own space, I figured I could suck it up for a couple of nights and share a room with someone else, if it meant that more coworkers at lower levels would be able to enjoy the educational and networking opportunities…vs just reserving them for higher-level directors/managers only – which is typically the case.
Yes…you’ll always have issues with a few rude or clueless people – or incompatabilities due to certain things like snoring, but usually last-minute workarounds can be managed in those circumstances. Most shared rooms work out fine – especially when you proactively convey a few rules, expectations and standards upfront to prevent the more common problems. Again it’s just for a couple of days…not a month!
In today’s brutal enonomy, staying a bit more flexible may mean the difference between a company being able to provide many more invigorating training/development opportunities for all employees, vs what I’ve seen happen too often…these sorts of trips reserved for certain director levels – or worse…limited to one “boss’s favorite” per dept – which is too often the case.
I completely agree with #4 (Dave) as well as Susan – when I have been with my co-workers from 6:30 am breakfast to working at a trade show all day to dinner with customers ending at 10 pm I truly need some down time and privacy. With my employer, if you don’t want to share a room it’s fine, but you have to pay the cost difference out of your own pocket.
There isn’t much else that can rapidly change your opinion of a co-worker as rooming with them. Discovering that they don’t shave their armpits or have a cutting disorder are just examples of things I’d rather not know!
I was recently forced to share a room with a co-worked who I thought was a good friend. There are large age and cultural differences between us which I thought would not matter but apparently they did. She was not happy sharing a room with me and wanted more privacy- by the last day she was not speaking to me. It damaged our work relationship and started impacting our ability to work together. I do not recommend this unless employees are good friends and request to share a room- too much business risk.
I find being told I must share a room is a violation of my privacy. I have some medical issues that would be apparent if sharing a room. No one should know my medical history as I travel with medications. I believe there should be a HIPPA regulation regarding this issue.
This doesn’t even cover all of the other possible intrusions into privacy or the fact that if I am sharing a room with someone I am basically working 24 hours, so a 3 day conference turns into 72 hours of non stop work there must be a Wage and Hour Ruling on that.
Personally violated is the best description of how this feels.
I have voiced my opinion to the owner of my company on this topic before,after having simular issues.
On one trip,which was 7-10 days,the guy was constantly on the phone arguing with his girlfriend,slaming the phone before hanging up,only to have her call right back all Night Long…
Another instance(And BTW,That guy was on that trip too) I opted for a different roomate,only to be kept up all night by his sleeptalking,Farting,and snoring….I was not happy at all about this arrangement either.
About a week or so later,I told the owner I simply could not deal with it,and up untill Now,he has arranged for our own rooms.
Now I am back to square one,and while I have never considered working for a compettor of his,that has recently crossed my mind,and He won’t like that.
I feel if you are driving with someone (Although they don’t believe you should stop at all switching drivers) If It is just a crash and go scenerio,I would be ok with that,but when you arrive at your destination,Separate rooms should be afforded.
Today I attended an employment tribunal because I had claimed constructive dismissal from my employer in May 2011. I had been subjected to months of personal abuse by my line manager that culminated in his stated aim to ‘get rid of me as soon as he could’. His opportunity arose when, at the beginning of a new project, I arrived on site at 7am to be told I would be sharing a room with a 20y/o lad I had never met (I am a 46y/o man). I flatly refused to share a hotel room with this stranger as was immediately called into head office by the General Manager to be told that I had to accept the new working conditions or resign. I was given just two days to decide whether to return to work and share a room or resign from my position. I had never been asked to share a room whilst on company business before.
The tribunal decided that even though the events of the prior few months to this event had had an accumulative effect on my position within the company, the ‘final straw’ of being forced to share a room, although serious, was not serious enough to determine that a breach in my applied terms and conditions of employment had been affected, and my case was dismissed.
It seems that some companies can hide behind legal loopholes and force colleagues to share a room, or force them out of the company.
My employer is doing this and has not even had the respect to ask if anyone is ok with this. I see it as a form of harassment as, if you disagree, you are accused of not being a team player.