Workplace Fun Benefits

The Benefits of Workplace Fun to Employees and Employers Would you rather be at a workplace that was boring and quiet or a workplace that was fun and full of positive energy? The answer seems obvious, yet having a fun work environment is usually the exception rather than the norm. People often hear employees complaining about their jobs, yet it is rare to hear someone actually express positive feelings about their job. For most people, it is just a way to pay the bills. However, workplace fun benefits employees by increasing morale, improving productivity, and increasing overall job satisfaction, which results in benefits to employers as well, such as improved quality of customer service, less turnover and lower human resources costs, and

Weinstein (1996) states, “if you want your company to provide excellent customer service, you first have to provide that same kind of attention and appreciation to your internal customers—your own employees. You cannot expect your employees to provide ‘service with a smile’ if you don’t give them something to smile about” (p. 31). A good example of this is the experience of Sprint, which incorporated concepts of workplace fun into their call centers, subsequently winning the 2002 “Call Center of the Year” award from Call Center Magazine (Karl & Peluchette, 2006a). The story of Seattle’s Pike Place Fish Market inspired a best-selling book, detailing how employees of the market have fun at work and provide extraordinary customer service, despite working in a grueling job that constantly smells of fish (Lundin, Paul, & Christensen, 2000). They toss fish to their customers and maintain an upbeat environment, thanks to the adoption of the principle of making work fun. This has even caused many healthcare organizations to adopt this fun philosophy with positive results. For example, Banner Thunderbird Medical Center regularly receives high patient satisfaction scores which are above the norm in the healthcare industry. CEO Rob Curry attributes this to the fact that they have a philosophy that incorporates concepts of workplace fun to keep the employees happy (Karl & Peluchette, 2006b).

Katherine Hudson, the President and CEO of Brady Corporation, has written an article that shows how active steps to incorporate fun modalities in the workplace has allowed her to transform the culture of her company (Hudson, 2001). When she first took over the company, employees were not even allowed to have a cup of coffee at their desk. Now, the company has revitalized itself, making the company “more flexible and dynamic and our people more creative and enthusiastic” (Hudson, 2001, p. 53). In fact, having a fun workplace has been identified as one of the main factors that identify the top performers in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For” (Karl & Peluchette,