Fun at work need not be an oxymoron

Who knew having fun at work could be so productive? Certainly not me.

Until this past year, our office routinely celebrated staff birthdays, planned the occasional potluck and celebrated the holidays with lunch at one of our region’s many restaurants. All other times our focus was always on work, work, work. Maybe this sounds like your office.

Enter the BBB Fun Team.

This office committee began in 2010 with two members and quickly grew to four, although the entire staff offers input whenever the occasion – or spirit – moves us. Recent activities have included book clubs (business titles, not fiction), a team-building scavenger hunt in Old Town, a Halloween office door-decorating contest and toddler trick-or-treat for employee’s children, and for the first time – and certainly not the last – an interoffice Fantasy Football league. The winner threw an office pizza party complete with trophies for all.

Many businesses take the concept of having fun at work to the next level and beyond, with two-story indoor slides, video games, billiards and ping-pong tables, even latte machines and a fully stocked refrigerator considered standard office furnishings.

All of the 12 nominees for the 2011 Better Business Bureau Torch Awards for Business Ethics, for example, incorporate some sort of fun activities for employees and/or families. Even Brande, president/CEO of Handel Information Technologies in Laramie, Wyo., said much effort goes into valuing employees and employee perks, including sabbaticals, home-computer leases, an onsite fitness room, even a Nintendo Wii for employees’ children to play with when visiting the office.

“We spend a lot of time finding the right people and making sure they’re very happy,” Brande said. “I often say our customers are not the most important, our employees are the most important in our business. We believe happier employees means better service.” Dwight Sailer, co-owner of HighCraft Builders in Fort Collins, said employees who work in high-pressure environments need a place to decompress. “If you can’t reach decompression, it’s pressure, pressure, pressure, and people are not truly enjoying their jobs,” he said. “If people enjoy what they’re doing, they do a better job.” And that, he added, ultimately means more successes for his business.

Since that “awakening,” Sailer said a fun event is scheduled monthly, be it a family outing at a neighborhood pool, an all-expenses-paid company lunch at a local restaurant or a tailgaiting party at a Colorado State University game. Not only do these events help employees decompress, but they also provide opportunities for employees to get to know each other on a different level.

But is there such a thing as too much fun? A survey by the executive search firm Hodge-Cronin & Associates found that of 737 CEOs surveyed, 98 percent preferred job candidates with a sense of humor over those without. Another survey indicated that 84 percent of the executives thought that employees with a sense of humor do a better job than people with little or no sense of humor.

We’ve found that having fun makes for a happier, more productive team. But it takes trust and respect – on the part of management as well as employees – to let fun be just that. It requires managers to trust their employees to know when to have fun and when to work, and it requires employees to know when it’s time to get serious.

I suggest you try it. It doesn’t take much of a budget, but it does require you to let your hair down, even if just a little. Studies show that employees think more clearly and operate more productively when they’ve had a break. I encourage you to laugh a lot and let others do likewise.

Pam King is president/CEO of the Better Business Bureau serving Northern Colorado and Wyoming. She can be reached at pking@wynco.bbb.org.

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