Making Work Fun!

A fun filled work environment can ensure increased productivity and employee retention

Words by: Jayadev Menon    Featured image source: pexels.com

Imagine an office environment where work gets done in a fun-filled environment. There is laughter in the air, there is music playing and people go about doing their tasks with a smile on their face.

Is this an apt description of your workplace? If not, do you wish to work in a place like that?

We have seen articles and videos about organizations that let people have fun. There are game rooms, gyms, reading rooms and even places to stretch and just chill out with a beverage in hand. Such messages are passed around on Social Media around with a wish “If only my office were like this one!”

Some Fun examples

Names such as Google, Facebook, Flickr, Nike and Apple easily come to mind. But, there is a whole host of companies across the globe that adds a spin to the way they do work and deal with customers. In India, in addition to some of the names mentioned above we have Godrej Consumer Products, Marriott Hotels, SAP Labs, RMSI, Intuit and CTS that make work fun for their employees.

Have you read the book Fish Philosophy or seen a video about Pike’s Place Fish Market on which the book is based? Both are strongly recommended. But be warned that throwing stuff, as shown in the video, may not make sense at your organization. What is suggested here is to borrow the fun attitude and make work interesting for employees and for the customers who interact with your team.

Recently a video making the rounds on WhatsApp showed the employees of Borosil playing the Indian National Anthem with glass products they had manufactured. They were thoroughly enjoying the process and today their creativity and smiling faces have spread joy right across our country and among Indians overseas.

Samsung has created a gamified website for customers who shop online for their products and services. Instead of going through page after page of product pictures and text customers will be immersed in a fun experience that has surprise elements included. Don’t you agree that such experiences will stay in their mind for a long, long time? Who said that company websites have to be 100% business-like or staid?

Why is fun excluded in offices?

As kids we played games and then education progressively brings the fun to a standstill, well almost. Life gets more and more serious as we grow older. We are told to chase goals, achieve big results and to do all that in a highly competitive and combative environment with hardly any room for enjoyment.

And when we enter the Corporate Arena life becomes all business, war-like and shorn off fun. Grim faces, stern voices, strict adherence to processes and lack of flexibility seem to be the key requirements at the workplace.

1. Fear of loss of control
2. Feeling that employees will relax and work won’t get done
3. Employees may not take work seriously
4. It may seem unprofessional to customers

These could be some of the reasons stated or felt. This stems from the belief that work has to be serious and fun leads to distraction and laxity in the execution of tasks.

But, it has been found time and again that people achieve more when they are having fun – they are more innovative when the ambience at work is energizing and relaxed. Rigidity kills creativity!

Many organizations are breaking rules that stifle and institutionalizing fun – bring in interesting elements to the workplace so that employees look forward to coming to work day after day.

Some ways to make work fun –

1. Create an energizing work environment
2. Go for an outing together – no business to be discussed
3. Watch a movie or go to a theme park with the team.
4. Celebrate achievements in a fun way.
5. Gamify processes
6. Play a harmless prank
7. Have inter department games / competitions
8. Do off-sites meetings with the team
9. Indulge in some adventure sport as a team
10. Encourage employees to commend each other

Adequate care should be taken to ensure that having fun doesn’t do the following:

1. Drop in standards
2. Customer dissatisfaction
3. Casual attitude towards work
4. Harming anyone involved
5. Causing emotional hurt or victimization

Breaking the monotony, permitting flexibility and remove elements that promote strictness and dullness will go a long way in making employees happy and productive and their organisations productive and profitable.

Make work fun ….. Fun works!