You Manage It! 2: Customer-Driven HR Should Having Fun Be a Job Requirement?
The trend of having fun in the workplace influences employee relations at many companies. Several software firms in Silicon Valley, California, have installed rock-climbing walls in their reception areas and put inflatable animals in their offices. TD Bank, a U.S. subsidiary of Canada’s Toronto Dominion Bank, has a “Wow!” department that sends festive, costume-wearing teams to “surprise and delight” successful employees. Red Bull, a beverage company, has set up a slide in its London office. Google has embraced workplace fun in a big way. Its office park has volleyball courts, bicycle paths, a yellow brick road, a model dinosaur, regular games of roller hockey, and several professional masseuses.
A company that has turned “fun and a little weirdness” in the workplace into one of its core values is Zappos, an online shoe retailer. Zappos has made having fun at work into a job requirement. At Zappos, some people are assigned the job of making workers happy because many employees work in the call center taking orders for shoes, which can be routine work. Call-center work traditionally has high turnover rates, but the fun culture at Zappos has helped the company retain employees at rates exceeding industry norms. Some of the fun activities at Zappos include parades, pajama parties, and happy hours, where employees go bar hopping after work in Las Vegas, where the company is located. One of the unique policies at Zappos is that managers are required to spend 10 to 20 percent of their time socializing with people they manage, which includes time spent outside the office. These social activities can go late into the night because Las Vegas is a city where bars and clubs stay open all night.
The rationale behind the trend to install fun in the workplace is that workers who are having fun will be more fully engaged with their jobs and be more creative. However, when having fun at work becomes formalized into a policy and turns into a job requirement, the “fun” may cease. Employees may feel resentment toward a company that stages fun as a business strategy to increase productivity.
Most of the youthful employees at Zappos are in their twenties, and the CEO, Tony Hsieh, is in his forties. As the Zappos workforce ages, the game-playing and bar-hopping activities that were once viewed as fun may seem more like an unnecessary chore. Managers may prefer to have a greater work-life balance so they can focus on the needs of their families and friends outside Zappos. Is the culture of fun at Zappos sustainable?
Critical Thinking Questions
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13-13. When managers at Zappos get older, they are likely to prefer to spend more time with their families and less time after hours partying with their subordinates. What HR policies can enable Zappos to maintain its fun-loving culture that is based on socializing between employees and their bosses?
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13-14. Why do companies such as Google let employees play volleyball, roller hockey, and other games at work? Is there a business reason why employees are permitted to play games at the workplace? Wouldn’t it be more fun to play these games away from the workplace with friends who are not coworkers?
Team Exercise
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13-15. Assume you have been retained as a consultant by a company with a call-center business that wants to encourage after-hours socializing between employees and supervisors as a way to improve employee engagement and creativity. With a group of three or four classmates, develop some guidelines for managers to use and refer to when they socialize with their subordinates after hours. Some points to consider when forming the guidelines include the following: Should a manager buy drinks for employees? Should a manager let an employee buy drinks for him or her? Can a manager hold an employee accountable for any bad conduct that occurs when employees are socializing at a bar? Some bad employee conduct that could occur includes the telling of malicious gossip about coworkers who are not present, amorous activities between coworkers who have had too much to drink, and profane and disrespectful talk about the company and some of its more controversial policies. Be prepared to share the guidelines for managers who socialize with employees with your instructor and other members of the class.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
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13-16. In this exercise, think how you would react to some specific situations where you may be required to have fun as a job requirement. Can you see yourself having fun in the situations listed here? If not, would you still be willing to perform these activities in a company that has a fun-loving culture? Do you see yourself fitting into a company culture that encourages participation in several of these activities?
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a. Sing a karaoke song solo in front of your coworkers during after-hours socializing at a bar, which is a ritual expected of each employee.
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b. Dress up as a well-known celebrity such as Elvis or Dolly Parton and perform your work in costume during a company dress-up day activity.
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c. Go out for drinks after work with coworkers on your team on a regular basis, which includes socializing with a coworker you do not particularly like.
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d. As a manager, order a birthday cake with candles and sing happy birthday to each of your subordinates on her or his birthday.
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e. Participate in a weekly poker game with coworkers after work.
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Which activities, if any, would you prefer not to participate in? There could be social pressure from coworkers to participate in some of these activities. How would you explain to your boss and fellow employees that you would prefer not to participate in a certain activity and avoid any hurt feelings that may strain your relationships with them?