Having Fun at Work

On most weekdays, you spend more waking hours interacting with work colleagues than with family and friends. Since that is the case, I firmly believe you should have some fun while working—and so should the people who work for you.

As a manager, you’re responsible for ensuring your employees enjoy their jobs while staying engaged and focused on the tasks at hand. This requires a bit of a balancing act, but you can do both! Here are some suggestions to help.

• Get to know people. You don’t want to get too involved in the details of your direct reports’ personal lives, but it’s good to know some things about them, their families, their likes and dislikes, their hobbies, etc. In other words, be a human! This is important as a manager because what’s happening outside of work hours can affect what your employees do while they’re working, and you need to be aware of that. But this knowledge also allows you to have occasional fun conversations with them. If all you ever talk about is business and duties and tasks, people will think you only care about them for what they can produce. I think that’s a sure sign of a bad manager.
• Plan activities. Involve your team members in scheduling some regular fun. It’s best if the company pays for these activities, assuming they cost money, but there are lots of things you can do that cost little or nothing. Either way, your team will appreciate the opportunity to do something different, especially if you steer the conversation away from work topics. This should be a chance for people to relax and get to know each other, which helps with team-building and morale. For example, when I was business editor for an afternoon newspaper, our team would occasionally go to a movie matinee together once the day’s edition was done. We went to whatever was playing at the right time, so we saw some stinkers, but we always had fun. We also had “doughnut Fridays” at the paper, with a bunch of us taking turns bringing in two dozen doughnuts on Friday morning. You’ll need to be creative if all your team members are remote, but if you ask for their ideas, you’re bound to receive some excellent suggestions.
• Surprise them. In addition to planned activities, do unexpected fun things for and with your team. When I had an in-office team during the pre-COVID years, I would sometimes surprise them on a random afternoon by asking for their snack and drink orders, and then running to a nearby grocery store to get those treats. You can also encourage them to leave early on a Friday when the workload allows it or send them specific thank-you messages at random times. I did the latter at my last job, and I think I enjoyed sending those messages as much as I hope my team appreciated receiving them! Be creative, and have fun with it yourself.
• Get comfortable with being the bad guy. While you want the team to have fun, you must ensure the fun doesn’t spiral out of control. Work still needs to get done. This means you might have to occasionally tell people that playtime is over, and they need to get back to the tasks at hand. With practice, you’ll find kind ways to do this. If the team has trouble with it, you can also set specific start and end times for fun events, making them easier to manage. A little organization on your part can help you strike the right balance.
• Limit out-of-office social interaction. Be careful about being social media “friends” with those who work for you, as it could lead to you getting too much into each other’s personal lives. You should also be careful about becoming too friendly with one team member or a small group of team members. While hanging out with them outside of work hours may be fun, it can lead to problems, from feelings of unfair or preferential treatment to a spillover of bad feelings if you get into a personal argument. I’m not saying you should never engage in social activities with team members outside the office, but you should tread carefully if you do so.

You hired the people on your team because they had the right skills for their jobs, but you’ll likely get closer to them on a personal level over months and years of working together. It’s up to you to ensure your team members stay engaged in their work, and they’re more likely to do so if they enjoy their jobs. Figuring out the best way to make work fun is critical to that engagement plan. And as a bonus, it will make work more fun for you, too. 

What have you done to create an atmosphere of fun for your team, and yourself? Let’s discuss your idea in the comments.