Have Fun at Work!

By Kat McDaniel, Principal at MEDiAHEAD

This week, we all decided to walk two miles down to the parade to cheer on the Kansas City Chiefs. We wore our Hawaiian Bros/Chief’s shirts and braved the cold for a fun day.

Everyone knows that I’m not a big football fan, but my employees are superfans. I love to participate in events like this because it is important to them. Fun at work is a key element of employee happiness.

A sense of fun helps people to have a more positive mind-set, enjoy higher levels of wellbeing and better mental health.

Organizations with higher levels of employee wellbeing report lower levels of absenteeism, presenteeism, and work-related errors. It’s why we all have lunch together every Friday, with the rule that we can’t discuss work. It’s how we all get to know each other outside of our work life.

Some companies think fun at work is a distraction, but research suggest that it has a positive impact on engagement, creativity and purpose, which increases employee retention and reduces turnover.

When you think about it, we spend 75% of our day with co-workers and no one wants to work at a place that’s no fun!