[Stephen Small]

Hi Rodie

You are dead right = when we used to do this, people talked more openly as they wound down at the end of the week, and we got the most honest conversations.

We don’t do this at my current workplace, and I can’t see us changing – not just for D&A reasons but we also run a 9-day fortnight and logistically it would not work for us.

However, at a previous employer we had company-provided takeaways (covering our host responsibilities) and drinks after an end-of-month briefing which worked well – interestingly we found that staff attitudes changed and they went from a ‘finish all the beers in the fridge’ mentality to a point where we were buying twice as much soft drink as beer (helped by only providing a certain number of drinks per person, and drivers of company vehicle were zero alcohol) and everyone left within an hour.

So, it can be done safely……. it just depends if the company has the courage to step up, and the internal culture can support it.

Cheers

Stephen