benefits of play at work

The World Economic Forum (WEF) held a summit in China on September 2018, where David Gann, the author behind The Playful Entrepreneur, discussed how he became the "playful entrepreneur," by incorporating playtime in his daily routine. Again, we found further examples (presented below) in our interview data set that suggested some enjoyment of ‘managed fun’ but also paradoxically suggested some antipathy and resistance to this form of fun. They can do a lunch and learn on their culture. For a larger organization, you can send out feedback forms or surveys to try to get some ideas. In this post, we have covered the following: (you can click the below to jump back to that section). A number of organizations offer things like in-office yoga. One of my five key fundamental values in life is to have fun. It's no secret that the organizations who successfully engage and use the creative abilities of their employees know that creativity can't be commanded; it doesn't just flow at will. What they try to do, she explained, is encourage and facilitate experiential – not experimental –  learning. What they try to do, she explained, is encourage and facilitate experiential – not experimental –  learning. The key takeaways from this paper are that fun at work was positively and directly related to organizational citizenship behavior, and positevely and indirectly related to both task performance and creative performance. (2015). However, many of us lead hectic lives that revolve around work, housekeeping and other (family) obligations, leaving us feeling like we'll never have enough time to have fun. Needless to say, they never reached those highs. What I’ve seen as a result is much higher rates of organic fun popping up. We’ve written a guide for employee experience design that you can find here. They may like the idea of it, but performing it can be terrifying. Which was great…for some people, but not for everyone. To note, a lot of people have anxiety about doing improv, and that’s totally understandable. In both contexts, you are problem solving, trying to do things in the fastest, most optimal ways, and in an elegant fashion,” he wrote in July 2014. The company, which has worked with American Express, Microsoft and Pfizer, to name a few, has a range of games, workshops and programs that they lead, and each one has a different target. The use of games, she said, can also help co-workers get to know each other on a “more personal” level. As we have gone over earlier, this is the play personality that most organizations gravitate towards. In fact, one of the respondents in the survey ended up leaving his job due to having constant pressure to be present and participating in “managed fun” events. It’s why so many trendy workplaces will have the ping-pong table, the foosball table or a Playstation, but offer few other options. A very important point that I want to make is that management play and fun can become forced fun, which ends up being no fun for anybody. Treehouse, which he started 4 years ago, is an online school which teaches its customers things like web design, coding, and business. Check out the podcast I did with SnackWalls where I discuss this topoic. Reading, watching movies, poetry, playing tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons. It’s due to the indirect impact that play has on aspects like employee engagement or task performance. These are easy to do remote as well – have people tune in with their lunch on hand (heck, even order lunch for your staff if you want), and enjoy a lunch and learn from an employee. Furthermore, findings suggest that play at work can benefit whole organizations by creating a friendlier work atmosphere, higher employee commitment to work, more flexible organization-wide decision making, and increased organizational creativity. Yet, about a third of the room did. Request a Demo: https://www.geteverwise.com/requestdemo/. Fun also impacted positively on how many days respondents took off work due to sickness or injury, with 62 per cent of employees who had had no sick days in the last three months having had fun at work. Let’s dive into some research, from the excellent paper Play hard, work hard: Fun at work and job performance (Woolf 2014). Other research shows that play can decrease absenteeism, stress, and health care costs. So if you’re looking for a way to add some levity and laughter to the workplace, all while improving communication, camaraderie and coming up with new ways to solve problems, pick a non-work related game or activity to play each week. Why? In 2020 I was recognized with the Radar30 Award by Thinkers50. Instead of just working (all work and no play make Jack a dull boy), more organizations have started to embrace play in the workplace. However, having fun shouldn't be something you set time aside to do but something you should be implementing in your everyday life. As employers around the world try to figure out how to best harness productivity, some find that a little unproductivity can go a long way. But fun and games in the workplace isn’t, and shouldn’t be, limited to the offerings of a team-building organization. A common way of addressing this play personality is having employees host lunch and learns. They want to make money and beat out their competitors. I write about leadership in the era of diversity and inclusion. In the wake of Coronavirus, I recommend making use of something like Netflix Party to watch a comedy special together.

… Some experts also subscribe to the idea that "playtime" can stimulate our imagination, helping us adapt and solve problems better and quicker. Today I reside in Palo Alto, California, where I continue to advise and inspire American women, leaders, and entrepreneurs. It’s helpful in those cases, she said, when employers are aware of what went on. Identifying what you currently have, and what your shortcomings are will give you an idea of where you need to look into. Again, I go into this in much more detail here: Forced Fun Is No Fun – So Why Do Organizations Keep It Up? © Playficient 2019, Vancouver, BC, Canada. Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. The suggestions I gave earlier on what you can do in the workplace for each play personality is a starting point.

Helps develop and improve social skills. Unfortunately, this leaves out the other play personalities. Fun fact about beanie babies: in the 90s when they were taking off and going for high prices, my Grandma bought them hoping they would one day be enough to pay for her grandkids university education. Kids, by nature, tend to fall into the joker category (which unfortunately gets yanked out of them as they get older), so having time to bring them in can be a good idea. In sum, a positive workplace is more successful over time because it increases positive emotions and well-being. In a way, it lead to some conflict at work that wasn’t being addressed, but was quite the elephant in the room (I’ve written a post about the value of healthy conflict at work which you can check out here). Go toss around a frisbee. The best thing that you can do is asking around the office and finding what kind of things that employees gravitate towards to in regards to play. Research shows that workplace stress leads to an increase of almost 50% in voluntary turnover. It encourages exploration, experimentation and curiosity. The good news is that there are a lot of benefits for bringing play into work. Organizations have come to see the benefits of creative play in the office, and that allowing for play at work has been beneficial.

I've used to be the type that never laughed, and I was not particularly creative when it came to party games. In fact, Corporate Games, an aptly named company that claims to offer the “widest range” of office and team-building games and activities in the country, was founded over 20 years ago in 1991 “before team-building was really a thing,” explained corporate team-building expert.

Give developers some time to work on problems that they feel passionate about. The day may not be “productive”, but that playful energy of the joker will linger, resulting in more well-being around the office. A lot of improv troupes can be hired to come perform for your organization. And the perks keep on coming: laughter is a great bonding tool; the games allow participants to take risks in a non-threatening non-business situation; and they allow employers to see how members of their staff fare in competitions.

In fact, we’ll examine how managed, or “forced fun”, can backfire on what you were hoping to get out of creating a more playful workplace. Have group walks or runs. At one Bay Area startup, the team plays a game of Heads Up each Friday morning to encourage teamwork, communication and a little bit of silliness. For most organizations, this is as about as far as they go, and this is what they get wrong. A., Cooper-Thomas, H. & Winquist, J. Source: Pixabay. In fact, Corporate Games, an aptly named company that claims to offer the “widest range” of office and team-building games and activities in the country, was founded over 20 years ago in 1991 “before team-building was really a thing,” explained corporate team-building expert Cynthia Shon during a telephone interview this week. The Hong Kong office of Sinclair Communications had its employees spend two hours lying on the floor, creating one big doodle together. Let’s take a look at a few articles discussing the benefits of play in the workplace: Teams of workers can benefit from play via increased trust, bonding and social interaction, sense of solidarity, and a decreased sense of hierarchy.

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