All Work & No Play? The Importance of Fun at Work
Now that workforces are even more ‘distributed’, maintaining employee happiness & morale has never been higher on the agenda; not surprisingly employee morale is cited as a top challenge by many of the 1000s of HR professionals surveyed in recent times. The challenge companies & organizations of all kinds have always faced to protect their work culture is now immense. How do you approach meeting the need for what tops employee polls as key to employee happiness in these continually evolving strange & unusual times? It’s not only important to know but also to understand why what regularly tops these polls is Fun.
How Fun At Work Works
Out of the top three things today’s employees (of all ages) find most motivating, it turns out Fun wins out over Recognition & Growth. 90% find a fun work environment very/extremely motivating & 80% value working with people they like. And if you’re wondering how all this fun can possibly translate into business success, not only do 81% of those working in Fortune 100’s Best Companies To Work For say they are working in a ‘fun’ environment. According to a Gallup meta-analysis, business or work units that scored the highest on employee engagement showed 21 percent higher levels of profitability than units in the lowest quartile. There’s clearly an important dynamic for us to explore here.
Nic Marks, CEO & Founder of Friday Pulse, which tracks employee happiness to help businesses build a positive and productive work culture says “Happiness is the ultimate people KPI”. He prefers to focus on employee happiness even though he knows his clients prefer the term ‘engagement’. Why? Because according to Nic, employees don’t know how to answer an engagement question whereas they certainly know how happy they are! Simply put, miserable people do miserable work… improve your employees’ work experience & you will certainly be repaid.
If we stay at the ‘employee experience’ end of this & consider for a moment all of our basic human needs, things do start to fall into place. While ‘Fun’ is not specifically stated within Maslow’s Hierarchy Of Needs, perhaps it should be. What else can you think of that can impact & deliver in all 3 of the uppermost layers (the psychological & self-fulfillment needs) of this well-known pyramid?
How To Inject Some ‘Fun’ At Work
Whether your workplace is today actual or virtual, or (most likely) hybrid, i.e. a mix of the 2, technology is your friend. As is the idea of ‘gamification’. With the days of extravagant team-building events either long gone or much reduced due to budgets as well as the unprecedented pandemic, if you are not making use of an employee communication platform (such as Eloops) to deliver your employees a regular dose of ‘fun’, you are missing out on the easiest way to:
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Provide a few minutes of ‘lighten-up’ time that shows you understand your employees are human
- Build & enhance connection & bonding through healthy competition & sharing
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Preserve & grow your work culture through ‘fun’ that is in alignment with your stated mission & values rather than random & left to chance
While it may seem contradictory, ‘play’ in the context of ‘work’ has never been more important to get right!
How are you doing ‘fun’ where you are?
Eloops is providing this carefully balanced expertise to numerous clients on a global basis.
Might it be the right time for YOU to book a demo?
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