British tea time tradition at work is dying, what else can we do?

The Daily Mail recently reported that the great British tradition of making a cup of tea for colleagues has come to an end. So it’s official, the British tea time tradition at work is dying, what else can we do?

As mentioned before, Honeydew Health is made up of 6 employees; 1 is Polish, 2 are Danish, 1 is Finnish and 3 are British.

Whilst working one day, one of us offered to make tea for the rest and this sparked an interesting debate that ties is nicely with the Daily Mail’s article. Amongst those of us from Continental Europe, it was agreed that whilst offering to make tea for the office is a lovely gesture, it’s ultimately a pain for all involved. Having to repeat how you like your drink, taking the time to make and distribute all drinks and one even said that having tea made for them takes away a chance for a short distraction of their own.

Whilst this made some of us sad, we decided that we have plenty of other culturally significant offerings to enjoy and we would much rather celebrate a Finnish National Day every so often, than insist on making everyone tea.

So the question is, should we dwell on old traditions when we can have fun celebrating new ones? We at Honeydew previously wrote an article titled ‘Finnish Independence Day and other cultural discoveries’, in which we explained how celebrating different cultures in the workplace can be a great engagement tool.

We would love to hear or see evidence of this advice being taken on board and welcome pictures of your organisation’s cultural celebrations. Let us know if you feel this helped your relationships at work and whether it was a good time had by all! Post on our Linkedin, or tweet us– but help us spread the word (and maybe have a cup of tea afterwards).

To see the full Daily Mail article, click here.