People travel from all over the country to spend little more than a week camping in the desert of Nevada while enjoying live entertainment, eye-catching "pop-up" installations, adult games while dressing up in all sorts of gorgeous costumes. Have group walks or runs. “Eighty percent of what we do is on the fun side of the spectrum,” Shon said about her company. The company, which has worked with American Express, Microsoft and Pfizer, to name a few, has a range of games, workshops and programs that they lead, and each one has a different target. This is due to the fact that management has given employees more of a choice in things they can suggest for fun, and are more open to. Due to COVID, a number of organizations have had to get really creative when it comes to keeping a fun atmosphere. I am currently streaming my motivational speeches all over the world on topics like entrepreneurship, women-in-business and in leadership, emotional intelligence, human resource, diversity and inclusion, future-of-work, digital disruptions, resilience and reinvention, life design and living in the world post-COVID-19. See what ideas employees have. Reading, watching movies, poetry, playing tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. These can be from fun times and gatherings throughout the organization. When we play, we trigger the release of endorphins, our natural “feel good” hormones which boost your mood and improve your overall sense of well being. Firstly, the games force a certain level of social interaction and can facilitate conversation in a very jovial way. Instead of just working (all work and no play make Jack a dull boy), more organizations have started to embrace play in the workplace. Ten Employee Onboarding Ideas Your Organization Can Use Right Now. Others who were not competitive by nature were frustrated. There has been a rise in organizations allowing for more play at work. Other research shows that play can decrease absenteeism, stress, and health care costs. I grew up at a time when having fun wasn't considered particularly important. The fun paradox: Why The Entry Interview Should Be Essential In Your Employee Onboarding, Employee Engagement – Everything You Need To Know, A List Of Business Books On Culture That Won’t Bore You, The Playficient Workplace Culture Manifesto. Fun fact about beanie babies: in the 90s when they were taking off and going for high prices, my Grandma bought them hoping they would one day be enough to pay for her grandkids university education. Let’s dive into some research, from the excellent paper Play hard, work hard: Fun at work and job performance (Woolf 2014). They could do a lunch and learn on something that they’re really passionate about. Organizations have come to see the benefits of creative play in the office, and that allowing for play at work has been beneficial. The use of games, she said, can also help co-workers get to know each other on a “more personal” level. Source: Pixabay. In both contexts, you are problem solving, trying to do things in the fastest, most optimal ways, and in an elegant fashion,” he wrote in July 2014. They would see others spending so much time at the foosball table and not enough time working, creating resentment. Seeing the KPIs on creating playful workplaces is hard. Let’s take a look at a few articles discussing the benefits of play in the workplace: Teams of workers can benefit from play via increased trust, bonding and social interaction, sense of solidarity, and a decreased sense of hierarchy. Needless to say, they never reached those highs. In some ways, it seemed to create more problems than solving. Working remote? Have a zoom yoga or meditation class, whether employee lead or you hire someone for it. Studies show that when a participant receives a task that is presented playfully, they are more involved and spend more time on the task. The benefits of play at work are immeasurable. With the rise of remote work due to Coronavirus, many organizations have been forced to figure out how to drive engagement and keep things light-hearted. What I’ve seen as a result is much higher rates of organic fun popping up. You’re about to find out. And the benefits of letting go and playing, Shon said, are plentiful. A., Cooper-Thomas, H. & Winquist, J. A lot of improv troupes can be hired to come perform for your organization. Treehouse, which he started 4 years ago, is an online school which teaches its customers things like web design, coding, and business. Is there a movie that the team wants to go check out? Do you have a range of things that cover the play personalities? If you’re a small organization, you can go around and find what kind of things people like to do for fun. Sports, board games, video games. When they can’t rely on their ping-pong tables, beer Fridays, or “kindergarten offices”, they’ve had to get creative. Sixty percent to 80% of workplace accidents are attributed to stress, and it’s. In the early 1990s, one San Francisco production company installed a basketball net in its open-plan office, resulting in denim-clad editors breaking into pick-up games at a moment’s notice. Why? Source: Pixabay. It’s due to the indirect impact that play has on aspects like employee engagement or task performance. Furthermore, findings suggest that play at work can benefit whole organizations by creating a friendlier work atmosphere, higher employee commitment to work, more flexible organization-wide decision making, and increased organizational creativity. In the wake of Coronavirus, I recommend making use of something like Netflix Party to watch a comedy special together. Anything that puts emphasis on physical health? Just be careful that it doesn’t turn into the party planning committee from The Office. Shon explained some of the benefits of putting down work for a few minutes and taking the time to play a game. You may just find that your organization is missing out on the benefits of play by not having something in place for the various play personalities. That said, I do want to discuss some of this here as well. Only one fifth of our respondents in the survey study claimed to enjoy this category of fun. For most organizations, this is as about as far as they go, and this is what they get wrong. A number of organizations will have a growing collection of photos of the workplace. No, I’m not just talking about staff portrait photos. But fun and games in the workplace isn’t, and shouldn’t be, limited to the offerings of a team-building organization. Want to learn more about the perils of forced fun? //