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All Work and No Play Isn't Even Good for Work

(Reprinted with Permission: Psychology Today, March 1989)

Joy Committees at the office. Morning encounters with the company robot? Hula-Hoop contests? These seemingly incongruous additions to the business scene represent a new approach to increasing productivity. Playfulness, researchers are finding, can help people take a better, more creative approach to the way they work. The serious benefits of fun have been so well established that a number of firms have made it part of the corporate culture.

Ben & Jerry's Homemade, for example, set up an official Joy Committee six months ago. "Before that," says Peter Lind, head of research and development and Grand Poobah of the committee, "Jerry Greenfield (the company's cofounder) spread joy on an irregular yet constant basis."

Tacky Dress-Up Day, complete with plaids, paisley and polyester, blinded the staff in Waterbury Vermont, one day last year. Earlier during the busiest time of the summer, the ice cream company hired masseuses to ease the tension. "People could go out, have a massage and relax for a half an hour," Lind says. He feels joy improves productivity in part by making employees feel comfortable with one another. "There's not a hierarchy here. People can share ideas. "Another perk, naturally enough, is free ice cream - though how joyful some of the experimental flavours are (Cherry-Coated Popcorn? Grapefruit Champagne?) may be debatable. Gummy-worm ice cream, on the other hand, was a big hit, and Lind's favourite experimental flavour is Jalapeno Ice. He does not, however, recommend eating it alone: "Beer mollifies its intensity."

At Odetics, a high-technology robotics firm in Anaheim, California, fun is part of an overall commitment to keeping employees happy and healthy. The company has a repertory theatre, a weight room, a pool, and tennis and volleyball courts. Bill Prichard, public relations manager and a member of the company's Fun Committee, sees these facilities as ways to increase communication and good employee relations as well as fun. "At the fitness centre, for example, everyone is in sweats pumping iron - from the janitor to company officers. There's free communication among the ranks, an openness that carries over into the office."

Odetics has had a Fun Committee since 1982. It sponsors activities such as a '50s and '60s Day featuring Hula-Hoop contests, bubble-gum blowing competitions and telephone-booth stuffing. And on any given day, ODEX-I may be seen roaming the hallways. The six-legged robot, Prichard says, "sort of looks like a big spider."

Management expert Tom Peters cites the late Bill Gore, founder of W.L. Gore Associates, and Tom Monaghan, founder of Domino's Pizza, as two men who made fun an integral part of their successful organizations. Robert Levering, Milton Moscowitz and Michael Katz give many examples of playfulness and fun in The Hundred Best Companies to Work for in America. Other experts have also recommended laughter, jokes and joy in general as essential tools of management - for defusing tension, making meetings more productive and improving creativity.

Research supports the idea that joy and play can be especially beneficial to creativity. Psychologist Alice Isen and her colleagues at the University of Maryland, for example, found that people who "felt good" after seeing a humorous film solved problems more creatively. Similarly, Mary Ann Glyn, assistant professor of organizational behaviour at Yale University, discovered that people who see problems as games come up with more creative solutions than those who consider the same problems as work.

Knowing this, how can we make the workplace more fun and more productive for ourselves and those we work with? To get some answers Psychology Today turned to organizational psychologist and consultant David Abramis, Ph.D., assistant professor of management and human resources at the School of Business Administration at California State University, Long Beach, a leading researcher in the field.
- the Editors of Psychology Today

Finding the Fun at Work
 David J. Abramis

Usually, when I ask people questions that evoke significant details about their work, the answers come quickly. But when I ask them about fun, they often slow down. People generally don't think about work in terms of fun. Yet understanding the role of fun in a workplace can reveal much about motivation, leadership, stress and other key organizational issues. It may also help you build in attitudes and activities that will promote fun at work.

When I asked a computer programmer about fun, he told me, "I can't think of anything more fun than debugging." A bank teller reported, "We send each other joke messages on our terminals." A company president was expansive: "Everything about the job is fun except laying people off." A line supervisor, however, was not amused: "What do you mean, 'fun'? I'm not paid to screw around and I'm not here to win a popularity contest."

To learn more about fun on the job, my students and I studied 341 men and women in a wide variety of organizations in southern California. Most had white-collar, clerical or the other non-blue-collar jobs that Ralph Whitehead Jr. calls new collar (see "New Collars, Bright Collars," Psychology Today, October 1988). First we gave them a questionnaire about many aspects of their jobs, including fun. Then we interviewed 40 of them in greater detail, mainly about fun. Here's what we found:

"What is fun about work? What's Not?"

We asked the men and women to rate 55 common work activities as "fun" or "not fun.' These included things we were pretty sure would be considered fun, such as parties and playing around; some that might be considered fun, such as getting awards, accomplishing goals and attending lectures; and others that most people probably would not think of as fun, such as working alone and giving or getting a performance appraisal.

Surprisingly, every one of the 55 activities was considered fun by at least a few people. Eleven were related to an overall sense of fun, whether people personally enjoyed them or not: parties, selling, traveling, getting rewards, being in a contest, playing around, company-sponsored sports, getting positive results, company dinners, teaching others and other play activities provided by the company.

But personal enjoyment does play a key role in how elements of a job affect fun. Seven activities - selling, being in a contest, the work itself, dealing with my supervisor, working with superiors, giving performance appraisals and being in my group -seemed important to an overall feeling of fun, both positively and negatively. That is, for men and women who considered them fun, these activities may have increased it. And for those who didn't think they were fun, the same things may have made work less fun.

While certain activities do contribute to fun, I suspect there's another factor at work. People who have an overall sense of fun may simply see many work activities as fun.

"What makes work fun for some but not for others?"

There seem to be two basic causes: personal intentions and organizational climate. On the personal side, we asked people what they do to make their work fun. They tell jokes, set up challenges for themselves, come to work with a positive attitude or try to make others' work fun. And these efforts seem to pay off. People who actively try to make work fun actually have more fun on the job. The organizational climate employees' beliefs about things their organizations or managers are trying to do may also increase fun. One secretary told us that, in her firm, "Everyone understands this job needs a release and that fun is it." A hospital employee had a different experience. "They don't discourage fun here, but they don't encourage it either."

The focus on fun can come from the top, as it does at Ben & Jerry's Homemade and from chief executives like Gary Rogers at Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream and Tom Melohn at North American Tool & Die. Or managers and supervisors further down the line can create that atmosphere in their departments.

Even when people thought that their jobs and organizations were 'fun resistant," we found that individual and organizational efforts to make work more fun often succeeded. As one clerk told us, "Fun on the job has a lot to do with your attitude, not just with the job itself. If you have a negative attitude, you won't enjoy your job no matter what."

"Is fun in work the same as job satisfaction?"

Not really. When we looked statistically at the relationships among fun, job satisfaction and other variables in the study, we found that while fun and satisfaction are positively related, and both contribute to productivity, they are clearly different. Statistics aside, many comments confirmed this, such as, "My job is satisfying . . . but I wouldn't say it's any fun."

So it's possible for someone to be satisfied with a job but not have much fun, or have fun without being satisfied. The difference may be that fun is emotional and immediate - a matter of excitement, play and humour. Job satisfaction seems more thoughtful and long-term - related to matters like security, pay and working conditions.

"How does fun affect people and organizations?"

Compared to people who don't find fun in their work, employees who do report they are:
  • less anxious and depressed and more satisfied with their jobs and with their lives in general, more convinced that other people have fun at work,
  • more motivated by their work,
  • more creative at work,
  • better able to meet job demands and less likely to be absent or late to work.
We have no proof that having fun is responsible for all these advantages. In fact, fun may as often be a result as a cause. Many people told us, for example, that achieving goals is fun. This suggests that doing a good job creates a feeling of fun, rather than that fun makes people perform better. Or perhaps people who are less anxious and more satisfied with their lives are simply more capable of finding fun in work.

Still, assuming fun does have these good effects on the job, why do they happen? For one thing, fun may reduce conflict and boredom. As an engineer said, "I make some serious situations less serious by adding humour."

Other people we talked to saw fun largely in terms of their relationships with others. They mentioned things like "talking with friends," "making other people laugh" and "my supervisor telling me I did a good job." For them, fun seemed to fill a social need. It can also reduce anxiety and fatigue. Said a sales supervisor, "I joke every day to relieve tension. It helps people relax and feel less stressed, which helps them sell more."

As this research indicates, mood is important to performing a variety of tasks successfully. Knowing this, it makes sense to put fun - your own or your coworkers'- high on your list of goals. It may well help you achieve your other aims.

How to Make Work More Playful

Make a conscious effort to have fun. Set fun goals for yourself and your subordinates - such as attending the company get-togethers more regularly and setting up challenges for yourself - just as you set more traditional goals of performance and accomplishment. You might even include "having fun" as a goal when you set performance objectives.

Spread the word. Let people know that having fun at work is often appropriate - this might not have been true in their previous job. Share your information on how fun can be productive as well as pleasant and emphasize that both the individual and the organization play a part in making work fun.

Help supervisors and other managers have fun and suggest ways they can help their people do the same. Their influence is crucial for good or bad. When we asked, "What would make your job more fun?" a number of people told us, "Get rid of my supervisor."

At the other extreme, a salesman explained how his boss "set up a whole day of fun and play through a Sales Olympics. It's a big sports and games day in which sales teams compete against each other." Another supervisor "tries to open every weekly meeting with a joke. In a manufacturing firm, one man told us, "Our managers constantly joke with each other. It sure reduces the tension of 60-hour weeks."

Ask people what they think is fun. Because this varies so much, you need to fit the fun to each person and each situation.

Use rewards and recognition to let people know they are valued. Organizations such as Detroit-based Domino's Pizza, North American Tool & Die, a San Leandro, California, producer of metal stamping, and others I've named recognize achievement with parties, awards, celebrations and plenty of public pats on the back. Every manager and supervisor should be expected to recognize successes and accomplishments, large or small. The rewards don't have to be formal or bureaucratic; they can be spontaneous and personal, appropriate to the circumstances.

Create events. Devise or increase the number of planned activities, such as contests, company-sponsored parties and sports, that add to fun in work. They all may help. But the biggest benefit is likely to come from creating fun in the work itself, in groups and social interactions and in relations with superiors.

Hire people who are interested in and capable of having fun. At Dreyer's Grand Ice Cream, for example, people aren't made supervisors unless they have the ability to create fun and arouse enthusiasm in others. It may be easier to hire this ability than to train a grim M.B.A. to laugh.



(1989) All Work and No Play. . Isn't Even Good for Work. Psychology Today, 34-38
Date Modified: 2009-08-13

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