The Value of Fun at Work and Three Important Tips

The classic Mark Twain proverb, "Find a job you enjoy doing, and you will never have to work a day in your life." is something we have all heard. But even the most rewarding careers can have difficult days, weeks, or even months.

This reality requires accepting the idea that making work enjoyable is essential. Additionally, critical company goals like employee engagement, productivity, and even resilience are all positively impacted by having fun at work.

The most effective and simple method of introducing fun? Games. We've included the most important arguments for why having fun is so important for a positive workplace culture, along with suggestions for how to make your team more enjoyable.

4 compelling reasons to proactively introduce fun at work

1.Isolation at work and low morale are rising

The past several years have been difficult, and HR managers are aware of this on a daily basis. The need to combat isolation through culture-building fun will increase as work-from-home and remote-friendly policies become more prevalent.

2.Having fun increases teamwork amongst colleagues

Fun and happy feelings are more likely to spread around the office since they are contagious.

Fun is contagious, so bringing games and happiness to the office may foster connections that increase employee engagement and job satisfaction.

3.Having fun dismantles rigid organizational hierarchies

The benefits of this more densely connected social network of connections express as more trust, deeper transparency, and a greater readiness to speak freely and cooperate. Meeting other colleagues through fun and games builds up the social network within a workplace.

More significantly, having fun and playing games may be excellent "flatteners" that break down barriers between staff members with varying tenures and degrees of seniority.

4.In the end, it increases productivity at the business

Even while it may initially appear to be a little deceiving, adding enjoyable breaks to the working may really boost productivity for all types of businesses.

While the depressing low morale statistics at the top of this page may appear depressing, the positive side is much better: a more motivated workforce produces more.

Accordingly, happy people are more productive at their personal jobs, and the benefits spread to the team and workplace levels.

So it's clear that joy spreads and fosters connections at work. Then, we established that friendships at work increase employee engagement. And last, more productive businesses are those with better employee involvement.

The key to everything? Including joyful, acceptable fun in your team's weekly activities.

Three suggestions for adding some fun to the office

1.Take pleasure in both synchronous and asynchronous activities

One important thing to keep in mind is that not all employees enjoy having fun at work, especially when it's packaged official fun in which all employees are "supposed" to participate. The logistics and social pressure of an organized company event can actually cause stress and anxiety for some employees.

The opportunity cost of attending a planned social event increases while workers are at home with their families when social events transition to video conferencing and distributed teams include many timezones into a single team. This makes it more crucial than ever to take into account "asynchronous enjoyment," such as a trivia contest held at any time during the week.

Let's unpack "asynchronous fun" because it's a mouthful. It simply means "fun at various times for various people."

Traditional happy hours at a local pub or a planned holiday party are instances of "synchronous fun," which means that everyone is there at the same time. With scattered teams, a virtual happy hour at 5 p.m. East Coast time might not be as enjoyable for time-shifted colleagues in Poland when it's 11 p.m. and their children are in bed.

Since people must choose between their personal lives (time spent with loved ones) and professional activities, "asynchronous enjoyment" might be especially crucial for remote enterprises. Think about quizzes, polls, and other games that may be played and that don't always require everyone to be there at the same time.

2.Make use of the internet! It has many of resources for having fun at work

Fun may be included into everything that allows you to express yourself in a professional setting. Because of this, the recognition and incentives website Bonusly lets you give your teammates bonuses that contain GIFs, photos, and emoticons.

All of the aforementioned are, importantly, created to be virtual-friendly. They may also be played with "hybrid-distributed" teams that are made up of both local and distant players.

3.There are many ways to have fun.

Team leaders are the best at understanding what motivates their group. Don't be afraid to use your own imagination to bring some fun to the office.

Anyone on the team is free to bring a trivia game or icebreaker into a Zoom meeting, eliminating the need to wait for the "official" fun to be organized by the company's social committee.

One suggestion is to start a Manager 1:1 with a humorous anecdote. Building these "uneventful" aspects of pleasure is a method to connect with your coworkers and develop stronger bonds. It's also a fantastic approach to set an example for others and establish a more dependable and sociable workplace atmosphere.

Some people's ideas of fun and work might sometimes be diametrically opposed, but this doesn't have to be the case.

The ultimate win-win is to provide modest methods to have fun at work. Because their employees are more engaged and productive, managers and team leaders benefit. Employees benefit because they can express themselves more freely at work, which raises morale and reduces feelings of loneliness.

Tips by IceHrm, the best cloud-based HR management system.