Industrial and Commercial Training

Making workplace fun more functional

Robert C. Ford John W. Newstrom Frank S. McLaughlin
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Robert C. Ford John W. Newstrom Frank S. McLaughlin, (2004),"Making workplace fun more functional", Industrial and
Commercial Training, Vol. 36 Iss 3 pp. 117 - 120
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Sharon C. Bolton, Maeve Houlihan, (2009),"Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun and engagement",
Employee Relations, Vol. 31 Iss 6 pp. 556-568 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01425450910991721
Eric Lamm, Michael D. Meeks, (2009),"Workplace fun: the moderating effects of generational differences", Employee Relations,
Vol. 31 Iss 6 pp. 613-631 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01425450910991767
Barbara Plester, (2009),"Crossing the line: boundaries of workplace humour and fun", Employee Relations, Vol. 31 Iss 6 pp.
584-599 http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/01425450910991749

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Making workplace fun
more functional
Robert C. Ford
John W. Newstrom and
Frank S. McLaughlin
The authors
Robert C. Ford is Professor of Management at the University of
Central Florida, Orlando, Florida, USA.
John W. Newstrom is Professor of Human Resource
Management at the University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth,
Minnesota, USA.
Frank S. McLaughlin is Professor of Management at the
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University of North Florida, Jacksonville, Florida, USA.
Keywords
Workplace, Motivation (psychology), Business environment
Abstract
Recently, many practitioners, books, articles, and consultants
have claimed that a fun work environment is a good thing for
organizations to have. These sources assert fun will lead to
increased productivity, higher morale, and fewer human resource
problems. This paper draws the results of a large e-mail survey of
managers conducted by the authors. The results indicate that
there is overwhelming support for having fun in the workplace.
These respondents report that having a fun work environment
will increase the levels of enthusiasm, satisfaction, creativity,
communications among employees and enhanced feelings of
group cohesiveness. The respondents reported few significant
downside risks. The survey also asked for suggestions as to how
to make the work environment more fun. Many responses were
received. They were analyzed, cataloged, and evaluated by the
authors and discussed in this paper.
Electronic access
The Emerald Research Register for this journal is
available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/researchregister
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is
available at
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Industrial and Commercial Training
Volume 36 · Number 3 · 2004 · pp. 117–120
q Emerald Group Publishing Limited · ISSN 0019-7858
DOI 10.1108/00197850410532131
117
Many managers think that it is inconsistent for
employees to have fun and be productive at the
same time; the two activities are often viewed as
being at opposite ends of the same spectrum.
Indeed, employees are constantly reminded not to
play or horse around at work for fear that it will
lead to safety problems, productivity loss,
accidents, or even accusations of sexual
harassment. In other words, both the general
public and many managers believe that fun is
dysfunctional. As a consequence of this belief,
workplace fun is often frowned upon, discouraged,
carefully hidden or disguised, or outright banned
from the work environment.
On the other hand, many practitioners, books,
articles, and consultants all claim that a fun work
environment is a good thing for organizations to
have. These sources assert that fun will lead to
increased productivity, higher morale, and fewer
human resource problems. Indeed, some
organizations have well-established reputations as
fun places to work. For example, Ben & Jerry’s
official corporate motto states, “If it’s not fun,
why do it?”
Which perspective is more accurate? Who
should managers believe? Intuitively it seems that a
fun work environment would be more enjoyable to
work in than one that is not fun. Unfortunately,
there has been – until now – too little solid
(research) evidence to clearly support either
position. We report on the findings of a recent
survey that provides a clear picture of the beliefs,
benefits, and activities associated with fun work
environments.
We explored the general question, “What do
managers think about the role of fun at work,
based on what they see in their own
organizations?” This paper provides some of the
highlights that these HR managers told us about
fun work environments. Data were collected,
with permission, from an e-mail survey of 4,000
members of the Society of Human Resource
Management (SHRM). We had 572 usable
returns.
A look at the pros and cons
Are there benefits to fun work environments?
The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” Managers
reported that two of the most important benefits of
fun workplaces are increases in the commitment
(loyalty, dedication, lower turnover) of their
employees, and their organizations’ ability to
successfully recruit new employees. There is
a strong belief among managers that fun at
work can assist in these efforts. For example,
Martyn Sloman, in commenting on their results
from promoting a fun work environment at
 Making workplace fun more functional
Robert C. Ford, John W. Newstrom and Frank S. McLaughlin
Ernst & Young stated, “All the evidence is that a
high level of morale affects performance at work,
as well as the retention of staff.”
In addition to these key selection and retention
benefits, our survey respondents also reported that
having a fun work environment will increase the
levels of enthusiasm, satisfaction, creativity, and
communication among employees, and enhance
feelings of group cohesiveness. Managers also
reported that a fun workplace will contribute to the
strength of an organizations’ corporate culture –
the degree to which the company’s norms, values,
and guiding beliefs are widely held and strongly
shared by employees. Southwest Airlines, widely
known for its fun work environment has
demonstrated sustained success as a result of its
positive and fun-loving corporate culture. Our data
lend a broad base of support to previous anecdotal
reports.
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In our explorations of the potential negative side
of workplace fun, the respondents did not see any
major downside to it. In contrast, they believe that
a fun work environment may contribute to a
decrease in employee anxiety and stress, accident
rates, turnover, and absenteeism and even a slight
decrease in the frequency of employee errors and
incidents of sexual harassment. On balance,
managers believe that fun at work has no
detrimental effect on productivity, equipment
damage, or cost of operations. Fun at work –
within proper guidelines and by mature employees
– is not deemed to be dysfunctional for the
organization.
In other words, the respondents told us that fun
is not only “not negative”, but also it is very helpful
in contributing to the positive outcomes that all
managers seek to build in their organizations.
Overall, most of these managers agree that
companies that promote fun are more effective
than companies that do not. Fun, then, is functional.
Assessing the level of fun
If some fun is functional, do employees currently
have enough fun? The simple answer is “No.”
These respondents believe that their organizations
are providing only a moderate amount of fun at the
present time. They also believe that the level of fun
their employees are having at present is less than it
could productively (and therefore should) be.
Nearly 75 percent of our respondents believe
that there is less fun in their organizations than
there ought to be – and 20 percent thought that it
was much less. Further, these individuals believe
that their employees should have more frequent
opportunities to have fun (because of the multiple
payoffs from it discussed earlier). In other words,
these managers believe that their employees are
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Industrial and Commercial Training
Volume 36 · Number 3 · 2004 · 117–120
not having as much fun as they should. This sharp
deficiency (a “fun gap”) leads to the next logical
question of how human resource professionals can
safely promote a more fun work environment to
capture these benefits.
Identifying what is legitimate fun
In an attempt to provide useful guidance to
managers who are interested in reaping the
potential benefits of fun, we sought to identify
examples of activities used in organizations to
promote a fun work environment (fun culture).
We discovered that there are literally hundreds of
distinct fun activities in use across the country.
We have now catalogued these, and divided them
into the major classes of noteworthy personal
events, public celebrations of personal milestones,
fun social events, humor/games/competitions,
community support activities, humanizing the
boss, and other actions. These represent the major
categories of programs, actions, and events that are
offered by organizations to encourage and promote
fun at work.
Personal events
The most frequently reported fun activities are
celebrations of noteworthy personal events. These
include recognition of birthdays, the adoption or
birth of a child, and anniversaries of employment.
Other examples of individual celebrations
included such activities as awarding funny gifts to
team members who performed very well, and the
traditional employee “roasts”, where a featured
employee is the recipient of a litany of playful barbs
that highlight their personal characteristics and
foibles. All of these activities point out that caring
work associates – and their managers – should pay
close attention to what is going on in the personal
(off-work) lives of their colleagues and capitalize
on occasional opportunities to draw playful and
positive attention to it.
Professional milestones
Another frequently reported category of fun is
the public celebration of professional milestones.
Examples of these events include award banquets,
recognition plaques for outstanding results,
honoring the recipients of patents, and the naming
of an “Employee of the Month”. It is not too
surprising to discover that celebrations and
personal recognition events rank relatively high in
corporate usage, given the powerful (and largely
unmet!) needs that most employees have for
personal recognition. Hopefully, this indicates that
21st century employers are recognizing the
significance of esteem needs among their
workforce.
 Making workplace fun more functional
Robert C. Ford, John W. Newstrom and Frank S. McLaughlin
Social events
These somewhat-formal celebrations are followed
in frequency by more informal fun social events
such as company picnics, pizza lunches, social
gatherings, and parties. These events also included
holiday celebrations, cookie exchanges, retirement
luncheons, dinner cruises, company-organized
trips, costume dress-ups, company nights at a
baseball game, pumpkin-decorating contests, and
other social gatherings of all types. However,
despite their simplicity, most of these activities are
only done at a moderately frequent level.
By contrast, we found that nearly four out of five
respondents report that their organizations have
casual dress days and other stress-release activities
such as massage therapists, yoga instructors, and
on-site exercise facilities. Nearly one-half actively
participates in an annual “Bring your child to
work day.”
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Humor, games, and competitions
Many of the things that popular writers suggest are
ideal characteristics of fun work environments
which are either seldom or hardly ever done. These
include the use of humor (placing cartoons and
jokes in corporate newsletters, e-mails, and
managerial memos), playing games (using board
games in training programs or offering corporate
sponsorship of athletic teams and events), and
sponsoring friendly competitions among
employees (providing prizes for consistent
attendance, giving trophies for crazy costumes,
or awarding a choice of company products for
the winners of sales contests).
Friendly competitions also included a variety of
both traditional activities like softball nights, golf
tournaments, and bowling championships, as well
as some truly unique competitive games such as
wastebasket basketball, office chair races, office
Olympics, cubicle decorating contests, office
putting tournaments (impeded by numerous
obstacles, and passing spectators, of course),
and turkey relay race days.
Most fascinating, we found, were the open-
ended responses in which the participating
respondents identified the specific things they did
in their organization that did not neatly fall into
any existing category. There is a wide array of
things that organizations do to have fun, and HR
managers were very willing to share what they do
with us. Nearly 80 percent of the respondents took
time to share one or more examples of what their
organizations were doing to promote a fun work
environment.
One manager reported, “We print a monthly
newsletter that includes interviews with
employees, trivia, and fun training information.”
Another wrote, “We have cats that actually live in
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the office.” (Perhaps the saddest response we got
was the person who noted, “I wish we had some
fun in our office.”)
Community involvement
One interesting category of workplace fun was
community support activities. This included a
company’s willingness to let its employees
participate in community projects like habitat
for humanity, united way fund drives, community
car Shows for a charity, and toys for tots
campaigns. Other illustrations of community
support were encouraging employees to serve as
coaches for Little League teams, mentors for
troubled youth, and readers for elementary
school children.
Making the boss “Real”
A final category that HR managers mentioned as
contributing to a fun work environment included a
variety of things that relate to humanizing the boss.
These included such activities as the boss serving
lunch days, boss washing employee cars days,
company programs where the boss is made the
butt of a humorous skit, and setting up situations
where the boss either dresses or does something
that can be seen as foolish and out of character.
Examples of other diverse approaches to
encouraging and allowing fun at work include such
things as extra time off, employee appreciation
weeks, on-site weight watchers programs, stress
relief weeks, wellness programs, drawings for
prizes or sweepstakes, live entertainment, creating
and singing office theme songs, flexible work
schedules, and financial awards for various
achievements. The variety and creativity
demonstrated by the activities that these
organizations offer, to provide some fun in their
organizations, was inspirational and
heartwarming.
Back to the beginning
What, then, is fun in view of the incredible array of
activities reported here? One answer may be that
there is so little perceived fun in some
organizations that the HR managers stretched the
definition to include as many different things as
they could. Another answer to this question may
rest on the fact that some organizations find ways
of making almost everything fun no matter what
they do. Therefore, even the mundane events in
the job can somehow be made into a fun occasion.
Nevertheless, it appears that many of these
organizations have what may be termed as a
fun culture – one that is characterized by the
regular experience of laughter, joy, happiness,
 Making workplace fun more functional
Robert C. Ford, John W. Newstrom and Frank S. McLaughlin
surprise, jollity, enjoyment, spontaneity, or
light-heartedness in the employment relationship.
George Koenig, Senior Vice President, Human
Resources, Campus Services at Sodexho sums it
up rather well. He states, “At Sodexho, we
understand the importance of our employees
having fun while they work and the importance of
fun as a part of life for everyone. Just look at our
Mission – To create and offer services that contribute
to a more pleasant way of life for people whenever and
wherever they come together.”
Koenig goes on to add, “If that is not a script to
offer to our employees, customers, and clients fun
in their lives everyday, what is? Our core values in
Sodexho are built around ‘Spirit of Progress, Team
Spirit and the Spirit to serve’. Making progress in
whatever the day or year-end agenda might be,
working within a team or within multiple teams
and serving others surely is and can be hard work
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and challenging. Without fun, our long term
progress, the spirit of any team, and our ability to
serve others with zest and a positive attitude will
fall short of expectations. We fail in our mission.
We are not living our values. Having fun offers us a
universal opportunity to contribute to a more
pleasant way of life whenever and wherever people
come together”.
What contributes to fun? Although the
experience of fun is presumably in the eye of the
beholder and likely varies considerably across
firms, many things help create a fun work
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Industrial and Commercial Training
Volume 36 · Number 3 · 2004 · 117–120
environment. Careful use of humor, the
opportunity to play, the planning of celebrations,
the provision of entertainment and festivities, the
design of creative games, the hosting of parties,
the use of comedy, and the staging of friendly
competitions all provide pleasurable diversions
from the stress of work. Most of these approaches
do not require extensive time, and most can be
done with very limited resources.
Summary
In our study, we found that fun is not
dysfunctional; rather, the survey respondents
believe that there is too little fun in their work
environments, and that they have a wide range
of ideas as to how more fun can be added.
The good news is that having fun does not
necessarily lead to bad outcomes in the
organizations. Fun can actually lead to some
very positive outcomes that should be supported
and desired by managers in all organizations.
The most impressive conclusion is that many
organizations have developed and executed some
truly creative events to promote fun. They know
it is beneficial to have fun at work and they make
sure that they support, guide, and promote a fun
work environment. Isn’t it about time that
workplace fun became functional in your
organization, too?
 This article has been cited by:

1. Simon C.H. Chan. 2010. Does workplace fun matter? Developing a useable typology of workplace fun in a qualitative study.
International Journal of Hospitality Management 29, 720-728. [CrossRef]
2. Kathryn Owler, Rachel Morrison, Barbara Plester. 2010. Does fun work? The complexity of promoting fun at work. Journal of
Management & Organization 16, 338-352. [CrossRef]
3. Nicole Renee Baptiste. 2009. Fun and well‐being: insights from senior managers in a local authority. Employee Relations 31:6,
600-612. [Abstract] [Full Text] [PDF]
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