By Gary Dickson
Adulthood is serious business. I read that the average pre-schooler laughs or smiles 400 times per day. By the time we reach 35 the giggles and guffaws drop to just 15 a day and I bet very few of those are while people are at work. Historically, work has not had the reputation of being a place for fun and games. Bosses have had a keen eye and ear for workers who appeared to be enjoying themselves too much. The boss would admonish them with, “You are having way too much fun over there. Remember; this is work.”
Isn”t it ironic that modern, scientific studies indicate that people who have fun at work are excellent workers and companies that create fun places to work are among the most productive companies? A Cal State Long Beach professor, Dr. David Abramis, has made a career out of studying on-the-job fun. His conclusion is that “People who have fun on the job are more creative, more productive, better decision-makers, and get along better with co-workers. They also have fewer absentee, late, and sick days than people who aren”t having fun.”
By my calculations, the average person spends almost 23 percent of his/her life at work during their working years. This assumes a 40-hour work week and two weeks of vacation per year. Since most of us spend a lot of our lives at work, what could be wrong with that large amount of time being more enjoyable?
Unfortunately, there are still a lot of people who subscribe to the old-school approach that work is work and no place for enjoyment. I had a boss like that a number of years ago. In the early 1990s I had read some articles about what some of the cool places to work at, like Microsoft and a few of the early dot-com businesses, were doing to create enjoyable but productive work places.
I decided I wanted to make the newspaper I was managing then a really enjoyable place to work. I transformed an empty storeroom into an employee fitness center for before and after work or breaks and lunchtime. I taught a martial arts class to employees after work and I cooked for the employees every time we exceeded a quarterly budget. The results were amazing. Then, I got a new regional manager. He put an end to all the fun things. The workplace atmosphere changed dramatically.
If there was ever a time when people need to have more fun at work, it is now. Ever since the economy tanked and many companies had to lay people off, a smaller work force is working harder to get more accomplished. In addition, many employees who are doing all of this extra work are now struggling to make ends meet because most companies have implemented wage freezes and furloughs.
We should all be so lucky as to land a job at Google. Workers on the Google campus in Mountain View have free lunches and dinners from a variety of onsite restaurants. The company also provides oil changes, car washes, massages, yoga classes, game rooms, daycare and $12,000 per year of tuition reimbursement. Getting hired by Google is like winning the lottery.
On the Yahoo! campus in Sunnyvale the company offers an influential speaker series where they have brought in people like Deepak Chopra and Tom Cruise to provide presentations to the employees. And, it”s not just the high tech organizations that offer fun and stimulating perks. At old guard company SC Johnson & Son, an employee concierge service is provided so that workers can get their errands done while at work.
Lately, many companies have placed more frowns on employees” faces than smiles. Business owners and managers should study the example set by companies like Google, Yahoo! And SC Johnson & Son and, on whatever scale possible, add some joy to their workers” workday.
Gary Dickson is the publisher of the Record-Bee. Call him at 263-5636, ext. 24. E-mail him at gdickson@record-bee.com.
