I had a really interesting discussion the other day about whether or not work should be fun.
The resounding opinion was that work isn’t fun – it’s satisfying. Doing challenging things. Helping others. Doing work that’s well aligned with someone’s passions and strengths.
Fun, people felt, comes from the relationships with their coworkers. From the work environment. From the culture.
Satisfying work. Fun culture.
What do you think?
Yes should be fun..lets stop this engagement and satisfaction stuff. Lets think what it would take to make work fun!! I agree that develop the relationships develops the fun factor!
chris, here’s an interesting point of view from psychology today on the link betwen happiness/fun and productivity. http://ht.ly/2hFqK
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@Peter – What do you think the difference is between “fun” and “engaging”? Does the work itself have to fun for you to have fun doing it? When we talk about making work fun, are we talking about the job itself, or the culture?
I think about some of my early-career jobs doing menial work. The work itself wasn’t terribly exciting, but I got to work with some great people in a fun environment. I find work “fun,” even though the actual tasks weren’t.
@Fran – Thanks for the link. So this may be largely semantics, but how do you differentiate happiness from engagement (buzzword of the moment!)? I ask because I’ve seen (ok, ok… I’ve heard) data around happiness a lot before – specifically that it improves retention but not productivity. And that engagement was the metric that really drove productivity.
Which begs the question… what’s the difference?
Sometimes it’s really tough to make some jobs “fun.” Assembly line. You’re working against the clock to get as many widgets out the door as possible. In other positions it’s certainly doable, but I run into a lot of people who would just rather do the work and go home without any sort of emotional involvement/investment. In my opinion, it sucks to be them!
Ben, do you think that in those situations, a fun culture might help retain great people (even if the work itself sucks)?