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Does Having Fun Make IT More Enjoyable?
Lam1969 writes "ComputerWorld is running an article stating that some senior managers in IT think the answer to boosting morale is to have more fun on the job. The IT managers interviewed for the article claim making people laugh contributes to successful businesses and reduces turnover. How do you have fun? According to the article, Dale Sanders, head of IT at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, 'has posted photos on the intranet of staffers caught in awkward moments installing cables or servers, for instance. Sanders encourages others to add funny (and tasteful) captions.' John Wade, CIO at Saint Luke's Health System Inc., sometimes dresses in drag and encourages other unusual behavior. Other potential tactics for laughs include encouraging self-expression, encouraging 'serious play', and asking potential hires their favorite funny movies or comedians."
Does having fun make ANY job more enjoyable?.................. *yes*.
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This seems like a great idea. Improve everyone's morale by making fun of people. I can't believe it would be too long before someone's feeling are hurt by the made up captions provided by other employees. We certainly wouldn't to go to the effort and cost of providing decent pay, decent benefits, and treating employees like valued members of the company as a way to improve morale.
So how long before "Monty Python" is added to the Comp.Sci. curriculum at the local university? I'm all for having a fun and enjoyable workplace, but I'm not sure I want my professional qualifications trumped by whether or not the interviewer agrees with my sense of humour.
I think the biggest problem is that a lot of IT companies don't trust their employees enough to allow them more free time on the job.
Where I work, we have a 7 foot projector with Xbox and Xbox360 hooked up, and frequently a few employees will go and play games against each other for an hour or two.
Does work still get done? Of course. But nobody likes to work all the time, and video games are a good alternative to say surfing aimlessly around the web, because this way you get to leave the desk and interact with co-workers.
Why so many companies seem to think you *have* to work every minute you're there baffles me, it's very unproductive. As for the state of my company, we're #1 in our field, and doubling growth every year. It's a mid-size company, and maybe that's why this works, it's small enough that the employees feel (and are rewarded) regarding to company success.
According to the article, Dale Sanders, head of IT at Northwestern Medical Faculty Foundation, 'has posted photos on the intranet of staffers caught in awkward moments installing cables or servers, for instance. Sanders encourages others to add funny (and tasteful) captions.'
Know the easiest way to suck the fun out of a situation? Have it encouraged by management. Fun just happens. Make it a policy, and it becomes work again.
* Does breathing make living more enjoyable?
* Does having paint make being a painter more enjoyable?
* Does having a computer make developing software more enjoyable?
I could go on, but I think we've all paid this post far too much heed as it is.
-volve
At least according to a study from the University of Alberta.
Summary being that sad workers make less errors, presumably because they focus harder to block out the relentless hell of their lives.
fortune -o
I'm 60. 30 years ago it was the coolest thing to be doing. I had a sense of growth, future, learning and making an important contributions. I bought terminal with my own money to work from home! What killed it? Greedy, arrogant bosses who just politick their way up. Insecure techies who hide code, secrets and, possibly evidence of their own lack of expertise. Distrustful managers who want you to fix broken fund transfer links but without any ID's or passwords. Getting reamed for wanting to really improve matters by cleaning up the code I have to repair at 3 am. Big companies actually wanted us to keep track of and maintain LINE NUMBERS in the code which contributed nothing.
I've worked at places that did this well, and I've worked at places that did it poorly.
At a place that did it poorly, the employer tried to "lighten up" the place with all kinds of stupid shtick and encouraging the employees to get into the act. Naturally, employees felt pressured to participate and to pretend to think it was fun, when it wasn't. (Cue Bill Lumbergh saying, "Friday is Hawaiian shirt day, so, you know, if you want to you can go ahead and wear a Hawaiian shirt, and jeans.") This didn't exactly improve morale.
If you want to reduce stress, give your employees the freedom to be themselves. This starts with you being yourself. Don't try to be funny if you have no sense of humor, but if you do have one, use it. Don't try to be silly if you're naturally stoic by demeanor. Don't try to be a cheerleader if that's not who you are. If you're anything but genuine, and you have smart employees, they'll sense it, and that sends the message that this is what's expected, and your employees will feel stressed by it, though they may be unable to articulate the source of the stress (even to themselves). So just let your natural personality shine through.
Unless, of course, you're naturally a complete jerk. In that case, the best thing to do is to shoot yourself in the head. Your employees will love you for it.
They also tend to only hire people who are nice, willing to help others, and are always respectful to others in the company. According to mythos, sometimes managers will pretend to be prospective applicants, and walk in and sit with the real ones, to watch them. There have been applicants at the final level who have lost the job because they were rude to a secretary.
And really, except for the mechanics on the field, nobody there is in a job where training and experience could absolutely trump being nice, thoughtful and being able to learn. And even the mechanics, you want to have caring and thinking about the people in the planes. That probably also contributed to why they lasted so long without a plane crash.
It makes sense, doesn't it? It's a lot easier to enjoy your work environment if you don't hire jerks.
You see, in the IT industry - there are all these sales people who are constantly trying to push this proprietary crap down your throat 7x24 that is alsmost always expensive, and will almost certainly be obsolete in a few years. You will have a much more fufilling career, if you are cyincal about all of this, and embrace non-proprietary stuff whenever you whenever you cen even if it is a little more work and a little less feature rich. Over the years, the non proprietary also has the advantage that it tends to build on itself while the proprietary stuff will often keep re-inventing the wheel and charge for it.
I have lots of fun working at a high paying job. I'll have MORE fun with higher income.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
At the same time, this reminds me a lot of the hilarious series The Office. I mean, just because a boss is trying to be funny and cheer everyone up, doesn't mean he's succeeding...
Software is like sex. It's better when it's free. -Linus Torvalds
succeed.
If you are succeeding, and people have a meaningful part in that sucess, and are treated like they have a meaningful part in that success, then you don't have motivation problems.
Of course, that's like Steve Martin's routine about how you can make a million dollars and never pay taxes. Part one is get a milion dollars, part two is don't pay your taxes. Most of us don't know how to get to step one.
It's like whistling when you walk past the graveyard, the cargo cult management formulas for improving morale and productivity. I remember once spending a week long retreat with the CEO, in a cabin on a remote island with no electricity, nothing but the senior managers, a Phd management consultant and piles of flip charts. The topic: what is the business we are in. I remember thinking, if the CEO doesn't friggen know, we're in deep shit.
Incompetence, lack of direction and above dread of that which must not be spoken are like millstones around our necks. Doubt gnaws at us: fear that the terrible secret of how poorly we have managed our commitments will be made public. Anger and resentment eats at us like a canker, patched over with thinning layer of hopeless bravado. We struggle daily through a morass of pointless activity: the bulk of the work we do is cleaning up our messes, shifting blame, or delaying the inevitable.
Free your workers from these burdens and you won't need any tricks. Tear of the covers on the festering mess and let the light and air in. Don't try to manage the morale problem: you can't without patronizing, and if your workers aren't smart enough to know they're being patronized, they're probably not smart enough to work in IT.
If you try so hard to make things come out the way they are supposed to, and it doesn't work, perhaps dealing with the way things are wouldn't be so bad. If you are so much less than the sum of your parts, then perhaps you are misusing your parts. Look around with open eyes: things may be bad, but they aren't so bad that they can't be improved. Mere mediocrity would be outstanding in the cesspool of dishonesty and pretense that is business. Our model of success has become exploitation, where there are only two classes of people: winners and suckers. Many have done well by this model. But not you. If you are worrying about motivation you don't have the stomach for that game. Real operators don't need gimmicks, they keep the suckers eating out of their hands until they're done with them. You obviously need a different model.
In short: Promise little, deliver much. Don't manage the people around you, relate to them. If managing appearances doesn't work, then live by eternal virtues like honesty, fidelity, honor and bravery. Don't think like a manager, think like a primitive barbarian hero: company after all comes from the same linguistic roots as companion: it means people who share each other's bread.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
I recently started work in the Support dept. at a large corporation (I won't mention where, but they're known as a lesser demon here on /.). For a few months, my cube was isolated from my fellow team members, and right next to the Manager's cube.
Recently I moved over to where everyone else is, and literally minutes after doing so, I was more productive, happier, less stressed out and generally getting along much better with everyone. My new job seemed all of a sudden less daunting, and much more managable. The magic ingredient? The ability to screw around and bullshit with my coworkers for a few minutes here and there. Works absolute wonders.
I can't tell if you being funny or not.
So your girlfriend, who hates working with women, and wants all her female peers to be fired, is annoyed about other people being bitter and disruptive?
Also, just because it's succeeding with some of the staff that doesn't mean it's making things more enjoyable for everyone. Some people might find the photo gags described in the article genuinely embarrassing... is that good for morale? The boss dressing in drag is the sort of thing that's going to be perceived differently by the straight men in the group than by any women or gay men (depending on how the guy behaves, the former might be creeped out by it, or the latter insulted by it). If the boss' idea of "fun" is Ace Ventura, and mine is Harold and Maude, introducing "fun" into the workplace - even if it goes over great with the Jim Carrey fans - is not going to make my job more enjoyable.
One of the reasons for "professionalism" in a work environment is that it helps to establish a common, neutral social atmosphere. For example, several years ago when a coworker and I started working a lot on weekends - the usual expectations of office conduct set aside - I got to see what this guy was really like (stained Confederate flag t-shirt, fag jokes), which made it more difficult for me to work with him. (And I'll bet that his discovery that I was a fan of the Smiths and the Cure didn't make him any more comfortable working with me.) I'm not saying that a work environment where everyone checks their personalities at the door is a good thing, but straying from traditional standards and encouraging everyone to let their hair down can have unintended negative consequences as well.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
As long as having fun on the job is an institutional policy of the job, then having fun will be, sadly, a duty of the job. Having fun on command is no fun at all.
Example: one day at a past helpdesk position, I and a cubicle-conspiritor became so sick of the state of things that we deigned that the next day would be Sock Puppet Day. The two of us brought in many socks, fabric scraps, glitter, glue, everything we could possibly think of that might find a home on a sock. We then suggested to everyone around us that they might enjoy making a sock puppet.
The results were stupendous. Most everyone had a good time, and we were pretty adroit at hiding the process from management until we had all finished our socks. Then we hung them all over the place and went on with business as usual. No calls were dropped, tickets were still solved quickly and effectively. However, we were all in a much better mood.
One of the middle management frumps noticed what had happened and asked me if it was a team building exercise. I looked at her like she had grown a fourth nostril. Maybe in some far-removed way it was, but the sponteneity and silliness of it -- not to mention hiding it from our superiours -- was what made it fun and effective and morale-boosting. I suspect there was a sprinkling of having gotten away with something that really brought the flavor out in the moment.
The next year it was decreed from the top that we would again have an official sock puppet day. Everything was provided for us. There was a designated time and place where supplies could be found.
The results were predictably pallid, and few people particiated.
Don't make fun part of the job, you management types. If anything, make it easier for people to make their own fun on the job, but keep your mitts off of the actual process. You'll have much happier employees, and chances are they'll even take it up upon themselves to get work done anyway.