For the past couple of years Google has been reported being the number one compa
ID: 452857 • Letter: F
Question
For the past couple of years Google has been reported being the number one company to work for in Fortune magazine. What makes working for Google so great you may ask? One thing in particular that catches the eyes of many is the fun-filled working environment. Having a climbing wall, pool table, swimming pool, beach volleyball court, weight room, and eleven free gourmet cafeterias, sure doesn't hurt in your strategizing in becoming the best. Do you feel that a fun working environment is important when seeking a job? Explain. Research the topic of fun and humor in the workplace and identify some of the pros and cons of this strategic choice.
Explanation / Answer
It’s simple, having fun at work through group activities and team building games leads to a great company culture.
It’s no secret that having a great company culture boosts productivity and has a major ROI from a financial standpoint. As workplace happiness pioneer Tony Hsieh put it
Now more than ever, companies are going all out to provide a wonderful experience for their workers. Ensuring that they’re happy, engaged, and having fun at work. Work-life integration is becoming common for companies of all sizes.
Companies are even investing in work tools that are “funner” to use. Being that over 80% of the United States’ workforce has admitted to feeling stressed over work, gamified apps for offices are taking over as the next big need for enterprises, as they’ll allow employees to get work done in an efficient manner while allowing them to enjoy themselves. Check out these examples of using gamification in business. Get inspired and try test it out at your workplace.
So it’s important to have fun at work, but to really understand this you have to truly dig a little deeper and find what goes into building a great company culture.
Have you ever thought back to the first day that you started your job?
It almost feels weird, you’re excited to be in this new environment, but feel anxious because you don’t know the atmosphere, yet. You’re meeting all these new interesting individuals, while learning the duties that will hopefully make you the next superstar employee. You’re scared to make mistakes and you’re getting so much information, it’s like trying to take a small sip out of a running fire hydrant.
At the end of the day you begin to tell your friends and family how great this new environment is and how you’re ready to take this workplace by storm.
That feeling of excitement should NEVER die out.
Unfortunately, after a while people feel burned out and this comes from lack of change and a “not too exciting” office atmosphere. Which basically means that the job has become too redundant (not challenging) and employees aren’t having fun.
This can be changed if a company were to mix things up every now and then. Give employees more autonomy, change up the seating arrangements to allow different people to collaborate or host an event outside of the office.
Whatever the case may be, find something that will allow for more collaboration and give employees the opportunity to have fun at work.
CREATE AN ATMOSPHERE THAT EMBELLISHES YOUR COMPANY CULTURE
Create the right office atmosphere for your business!
Honestly, I wouldn’t expect to walk into a law firm or government building and see the employees shooting Nerf guns at each other (although it would be pretty awesome) or having beer days (Fridays at my office!).
Every company has their own culture and it’s your company’s job to really make the most out of the atmosphere. Creating a strong atmosphere will allow you to collaborate easily and have fun with the people around you. Something as simple as switching from cubicles to open desk areas can be all the change your office needs to get the most out of its environment.
Humor in the workplace
An excellent definition of humor, as it applies to the workplace, is “amusing communications that produce positive emotions and [thoughts] in the individual, group, or organization.” Understanding the multifunctional role of humor in organizations can actually contribute to effective management of personnel and the construction of effective workplace relationships. Creativity is “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, orthe like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination.” Humor promotes openness to new ideas by relaxing people and making them less likely to criticize mistakes or new ideas, leading to risk taking, which is the basis of creative thinking. Additionally, a humorous environment leads to increased creativity by establishing a contagious, fun atmosphere in which original ideas are likely to emerge and creative problem solving thrives. On that basis, humor should be considered an energizing force
in the workplace that fosters creativity, leading ultimately to a vibrant work environment, enhanced service delivery, and a productive organization.
Humor influences how people think and behave by elevating their emotional and motivational states. When we are feeling “stressed” or less than energetic, humor can elevate our mood by creating a buffer against the complex, the repetitive, or the mundane. Stress is the enemy of productivity and inspiration. In an organization that encourages the use of tress-relieving humor in the workplace, managers can enjoy an additional tool in the battle for consistency of performance.
Pros and Cons
Managers who can laugh at themselves or difficult situations are often seen as more approachable and in touch with the challenges faced by their teams. Humor also contributes to employees’ self-esteem, cooperation, creative thinking, and job satisfaction; it reduces stress, enhances leadership, and increases group cohesion. While higher status is important for many leadership roles, it can create social distance that may be undesirable in other roles. Humor reduces social distance by identifying similarities between people such as intelligence, needs, and values. There are also a few important areas that must be recognized and avoided. One is overuse, particularly by managers and other leaders. Too much humor can make it look like the manager is trying too hard to be everyone’s friend, or isn’t comfortable with his or her elevated status. Such a leader risks not being taken seriously. Another potential pitfall is inappropriate or insensitive use of humor. This is most evident when members of the audience, at which the humor is directed, are of a different demographic. The humor initiator must be aware of the audience’s composition because humor that is expressed at the expense of another person or group alienates that person. Ethnic humor is detrimental to workplace harmony and should always be avoided. Men and women use humor in the workplace for different motivations. Women share humorto build solidarity while men use it to impress and emphasize similarities. Men and women should realize this when using humor in the presence of the opposite gender to avoid negative outcomes. Gender-based humor is usually aggressive and intended to degrade for the purpose of making the initiator feel superior. Aggressive or malicious forms of humor must be prohibited. Since many of the problem areas are also considered socially unacceptable, a good number of staff will likely have sufficiently developed self-filtering mechanisms to avoid workplace conflict. By and large, the appropriate use of humor in the workplace represents another avenue for management to improve staff relations, creativity, and morale while enhancing the bottom line. Since it is generally accepted that happier employees lead to happier customers and that happier customers lead to higher revenues, we can truly say that it pays to have fun.