When you hear the words human resources what do you picture? Do you remember being called to the office, layoffs, disciplinary action? Or do you think of payroll, insurance, and paperwork? Probably the last thing that comes to mind when you think about HR is…F-U-N fun. But the best human resource specialists know that a fun work culture is one key to happy employees, and happy employees are more productive with less turnover. If there’s less turnover, the HR team can concentrate on more than recruiting and hiring.
7 Fun Initiatives for HR
- Start a FUN committee – Ask for volunteers from every department. Include employees from all levels of the organization. Meet monthly at lunch, bring a pizza to set the fun mood. What’s more fun than pizza? Discuss ways for the corporation to create fun events. Look for fun activities to share throughout the organization.
- Set the stage for FUN – Encourage fun by creating a fun environment. Add a bulletin board to the break room for teammates to post cartoons. Post a joke of the day. Add humor to the company newsletter, think Readers Digest and their “A day in the Life” section, except make it stories about your workplace and teammates. Add humorous quotes to Emails.
- Make it a Game –Turn training into a game with points and prizes. Look for ways to make production a contest with rewards. Recognize milestones. Organize wellness contests.
- Create FUN Days – Have dress up days, brown bag lunch days, and talk like a pirate day, “Ahoy there Matey!” Involve the team in charitable events. Hold a chili cook-off.
- Make it happen after work – Create and organize a company picnic, Christmas party, or awards banquet. Mail newsletters with employee recognition to team member’s home and family. Recognize tenure and accomplishments with awards employees can take home.
- Encourage a sense of humor and spontaneity – Yes, there is a time and a place to be serious and get down to the business of business, but there should be room for fun. Teach teammates when fun is appropriate and when it isn’t.
- Show others how to have FUN – Don’t be a dry, all-business, HR specialist—it only advances the stereotype. Smile, laugh, and have fun. Open meetings with an ice breaker, share self-deprecating HR humor, and look for ways to show everyone it’s OK to have a little fun—even for Human Resources personnel.
Don’t be an HR Stick-in-the-mud
As an HR Specialist, there will be more than enough occasions where you need to wear your serious professional face. Those aren’t going away, but that’s not 100% of the time. There are times when it’s not only appropriate to have fun it’s advantageous. If you want to build a productive team, if you want to reduce turnover, and if you want to make your job a little easier, then have some fun. Are you an HR Specialist? How do you have fun at work?
I got my degree in HR Management back in 2015. I finally got an HR Generalist position this past November. In all honesty I have been hating it and hating all my office/hr type jobs. I think its been mainly because I have been more responsible for “tracking” stuff and recruiting then actually digging deep into HR stuff.
I am good at what I do but I have been looking for a career change, but however it feels like I am stuck at where I am at.
I have made up my mind, since I am not able to find a different career, then I am going to stay where I am at and learn as much as I can and find ways to make my job more fun for me.
Thanks for sharing Chuck. I once found myself in a similar position. After getting to the point that I struggled to get out of bed in the morning to go into work I finally decided if anything was going to change it had to start with me. I realized one thing I was missing was a feeling of accomplishment because I didn’t always apply myself at the highest level. When I decided to take on any task, doing my best, I felt better about myself — and that was fun. Good Luck Chuck make your own fun. Lilly Tomlin said, “I though somebody should do something then I realized I was somebody.”