Today is the warmest day of the year for Seattle so far and we are celebrating it with a barbecue lunch at the office. This gives us an hour from our busy day to check up on our colleagues and share some laughs – an hour of fun! And who doesn’t love to have fun? Dealing with work stress everyday and trying to find balance between enjoying your work and meeting deadlines can get difficult. That’s why it’s important to create a fun place to work that helps bring out the best in people and strengthen relationships between employees.
A fun-oriented culture can provide many benefits:
- It lowers the level of feeling stressed and reduces down time.
- Happy employees have a greater job satisfaction and are more productive and successful. Lower stress means greater productivity.
- It improves communication and collaboration between employees leading to sharing of ideas and a willingness to support and ask for support.
- Not to mention, all of the above lead to increased employee loyalty.
Ready to add more fun to your workplace? Here are a few ideas to get you started:
- Celebrate milestones
- Sign up for volunteer events.
- Introduce the custom of “Ring a bell” – Whenever you accomplish a goal, finish a milestone in a project, acquire a new client (or anything significant) ring a bell and everyone cheers!
- Personalize the workplace – make the workplace attractive for employees to enjoy being at work.
- Compliment and appreciate everyone.
- Celebrate employee’s birthdays and work anniversaries.
- Have a game room for employees to use during coffee and lunch breaks.
So, the next time you find yourself or your team struggling to balance enjoying work with meeting deadlines, try adding a bit more fun. Not sure if sharing a laugh with team members is the best use of time? Remember: a fun-oriented culture creates a happy workplace – and happy team members have been shown to be more productive in the workplace than unhappy employees. Need we say more?
We’d love to hear how your team adds fun in your workplace!
