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by Robert C. Ford, John W. Newstrom, and Frank S. McLaughlin
Industrial and Commercial Training, 36:3, 2004, pp. 117-120.
Many practitioners, books, articles, and consultants have claimed 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. We conducted a large-scale survey of human resource managers, and the results conclusively indicate that there is overwhelming support for having fun in the workplace. As a matter of fact, 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 there was much less!
The respondents reported that introducing a fun work environment will increase the levels of enthusiasm, satisfaction, creativity, communications among employees, and feelings of group cohesiveness. Fun workplaces also increased the level of commitment (loyalty and dedication, resulting in lower turnover) and the organization’s ability to recruit talented new employees. Interestingly, the respondents also reported very few significant downside risks. The survey also asked for suggestions as to how to make the work environment more fun, and many responses were received. They were analyzed, catalogued, evaluated by the authors, and discussed in this article. Our major conclusion: fun is functional!
