While going to work doesn’t have to mean checking your “real self” at the door, making work “fun” may sound like an oxymoron which is not a derogatory term for the geek down the hall.
But work does need to be enjoyable if people are going to give it their best effort. And true fun springs from the same well of ingenuity where all great ideas originate.
For instance, a staff member at one innovative event center sent a birthday singing telegram to a co-worker. The telegram arrived via a gorilla, on a sweltering summer day. This was funny enough, but the improvised song the gorilla warbled sent everyone within earshot into gales of laughter. The entire “event” took only minutes, and brightened everybody’s day and week. Even better, since the gorilla was in costume, the XSORB Biohazard Response Kit with Facemask and Gloves remained safely tucked away, no spill clean up required.
Fun can also take the form of friendly competition, as in sports. Two chefs in a busy caf_ can spontaneously decide to see who can flip the most flapjacks; two waitstaff can see who can get to new customers’ tables the fastest (they can also spice this up la the singing telegram example, by, say, waltzing over to the tableassuming their shoes and the seating arrangement safely allow for such fancy “food”work!)
Of course, if restaurant workers are going to become this creative, it behooves the establishment to have an XSORB Spill Program in place. Smart spill clean up is a small price to pay (literally!) for happier employees.
The point is that employees be permitted to generate and implement fun ideas without management interference. As long as what people come up with is safe, above-board, and harms no one, let your team enjoy themselves. The benefits of all this lightheartedness? Employees who strengthen their “amuse system” at work are likely to:
- be more productive
- take fewer sick days
- have higher morale
- stay with the company longer.
