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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 more fun make it more enjoyable? It doesn't seem to be to be a very big stretch at all to define "fun" as that which is enjoyable. So, if you are having more fun, isn't it more enjoyable? This question seems easily answered by definitions alone.
-Da3vid-
You be as understanding as possible with them when they need to take care of their families
How about accepting a little less profit as a price to pay for supporting good workers in your community (and companies need help defending and encouraging this practice)
How about getting rid of employees, especially managers, that are abusive and/or want to build little fiefdoms
Lastly, how about you take the bitter employees who like to complain about every little perceived slight and fire their asses ASAP for being disruptive. I know my girlfriend, who works as a softare developer and hates working for women, would back this wholeheartedly, but perhaps that's because it'd be the cause of most of her female peers getting fired on the spot.
Look, work is typically what we wouldn't do if given the choice not to do it. That's why it's called work, it's supposed to be laborious and when it's not, you've got something great going for you. The best way to keep good people is to protect them, challenge them and give them excellent opportunities to get rewarded for working hard for their employer. You can let them play Halo for an hour a day on company time, but if they still work for a typical good ol' boy network and/or hyper-PC office or a PHB with sociopathic tendencies, you'll never have the kind of work environment that can match the aforementioned environment that makes work be work, but makes people feel like they get something good and safe from their blood, sweat and tears.
Click here or a puppy gets stomped!
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
Of course a fun work environment is more enjoyable. I've worked in an IT company though, that was lots of fun, without being very productive. The company doesn't exist anymore.
Fun doesn't pay the bills. Think of it as a nice fringe benefit, but not something more than that. I
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
From my experience working a crappy entry level tech support position, stuff like cube warfare can make all the difference between hating the customers you're on the phone with, and actually wanting to help them configure Outlook Express (for the 3rd time).
As I moved up in the IT world, and moved through different companies and positions the trusty Nerf Vortex guns came with me. There's always someone who appreciates a good cube shootout as much as I do, wherever I go.
hi mom!
That's one of the things I see often in a lot of these companies that praise "motivational techniques" in their HR departments; they don't ACTUALLY consider their employees valuable. I think this causes a vicious cycle as well: turnover increases due to the fact that employees don't feel important, and the managers then don't see employees as being important because they'll probably be gone in a month anyway. So they try to place the blame elsewhere, on "bad attitudes", not having enough "fun" on the job, etc., where the real problem is that the employees just aren't being respected as individuals by their superiors.
I found this to be worst when I was working at a call center; I swear, upper and middle management treated people there like children more than respected employees. Immediate supervisors were often easy to deal with, but when the problem starts from the top, it's nearly impossible to stop.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
My coworkers and I have a great time at work. In fact, that is the only reason I am not really looking for another job and probably why I am still there. We just hired a hardware guy from another department, he too has commented many times that he actually enjoys coming to work now. The guy I replaced took another job for about 15K year more and he left only because of some differences with the IT manager, he would come back at his old pay if she ever left. People have reasons for staying and leaving, our IT manager is the definate odd man/woman out and a definate negative across the board with all of us. We overcome that though and we enjoy our time because WE make it enjoyable, our fun did not come down from above as a directive that we "should promote some fun" with a benefit analysis and it was not a "follow the leader" either.
Does Having Fun Make IT More Enjoyable?
Is having fun enjoyable? Read what you just wrote.
You can answer that for yourself, right?
My page.
There's also the difference between fun and funny. Some of the suggestions seem like they're trying to use funny things to enforce fun in dull situations, which in my experience is a bad idea.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Frankly, the only companies that can and should be trying to improve the morale of their employees (I mean the grunts, not the management) with techniques other than money or free time, are the ones with proper mechanisms are in place where smart people get to decision-making positions. Come to think of it, there probably isn't much to be done on the morale front there anyway.
To prevent this day from getting worse, I'll just read ERROR as GOOD TH
i'd have to agree, our company is still a small business and there is still a lot of trust between the owner and all of us employee types. We are all very dedicated to expanding the company due to the rewards we all receive based on the success of the business. I've only been there a year but have had quite a few bonuses come my way "just because" we reached a milestone as a company (like 50 clients, a new record monthly income, etc...). our main attraction happens to be a foosball (foozball or however the hell you spell it) table, a projector with dvd player, and a mini putting green in our office.
:) fun boss to have though!!!) We are even developing an internal website to track the statistics and see how good (or bad) we are all doing.
We all play regularly, as well as haing movie days where we watch a movie once a month and have pizza for lunch. The company also pays for a night out about once a month where we all go to the pool hall across the way and have a few beers and play pool, the only female employee even get's into it!!
Our company has also seen an exponential growth over the last 2 years, going from roughly 20 clients to over 125 recently, most of it not only comes from our desire to be the best at what we do, our outstanding customer satisfaction, or refferals from our customers, but because our work environment happens to be so forgiving. One of my co-workers actually brought in a remote control motorcycle that we all took turns running around the office for about a half hour...
Though foosball hppens to be our favorite pastime recently, veryone enjoys themselves most thouroughly playing a few games a day, as well as sparking some friendly competition (amazingly enough the boss man gets the most pissed off when he looses, slamming the rods that hold the players into the sides of the table and even kicking the entire table once
- My uid ends in 69...
Very few do in the IT world. Most people are not happy until they have a certain $$$ figure with their job. Little do these people know that $$$ does not always come hand in hand with respect.
||| I still can't believe Parkay's not butter.
I hear ya...and agree with you...fun at IT jobs DO help things.
My first IT job years ago was a great atmosphere. Our BU mgr. basically gave us programmers carte blanche to do what we wanted...as long as the work was done on time and done well. We spent lunch hours that ran over quite a bit over an hour each day playing Descent, Duke Nuke'em...and other games over the network...with speakers at full blast and all the yelling and all that went with it. No problems.
We'd take breaks....play hacky sack outside our cubes. Hell...we were in a new bldg....and had scuffed up the walls with our dress shoes (dressy casual there). The bldg. admin had gotten in a huff...dragged us all in with the BU leader to chew us out....before she could get up and and start bitching...he stood up and said, "hey guys..play that outside...or just be careful not to scuff the walls.....and dismissed us without any scolding.
This is the same place that would send our team out twice a year, during the day, with pay on the company dollar to team building days....these involved all day tubing trips down the buffalo river...ski days at a lake, bowling...lazer tag..keg parties for the whole company (I think was a few 1000 people then)....etc.
I gotta say..we were the tightest team...got many things done way ahead of time and ahead of schedule...they paid for us to have fun, and let us be adults about how we used our time...and it paid off.
I think tho...they finally dropped out of that mode after I left...it is a shame..I seriously doubt they got more response and work out of people acting like every other company....
I don't understand why more companies, even ones that get big, don't just try to let people enjoy their jobs, have fun....etc. If they abuse the privileges...then can them, but, as long as the job is done...let them do it 'their way'.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Cheers
Robert A. Wukich, Sr FF/EMT-B
Yeah, at a place i previously worked we did a similar thing...
:)
We would play small simple games at lunch (Think Flash Games), though we usally didnt take anymore than the alloted hour
After hours was a different thing all together, we would play Half-life, Counter-strike, TFC, DOD and many other games... We would usually play for about 1.5 to 2 hours each day...
and Managment Loved it... Why? Simple...anyone working overtime who was having problems with computers could still call IT... and they didnt have to pay us to be there for the extra time...
I also found that out of every place i have ever worked the team morale was much much much higher...
"I reject your reality, and substitute my own" - Adam Savage
I'll gently disagree. I've had jobs I've enjoyed not because they were fun, per-se, but because the Not-Fun was kept far away from me. Basically, the jobs were interesting, management was supportive or absent, and i was left unencumbered to actually do work and accomplish something. You can skip the foosball tables, hawaiian shirt day, and mandatory bowling outings, and instead fire the incompetent cow-worker and preening, empire-building, managers. Average pressure decreases, more work gets done, and the employees are more contented.
I had a job years later that had more outright "Fun", but it also had some gold-plated broccoli moments, which in the end trumped the former, and caused me to depart. Fun is fine, but if the work in between gives you an acid stomach before you even arrive, whether or not the trigger incident happens that day, then the job is not enjoyable. Of course, the compensations were fun like trying out large simulations on new machines before they were released to users.
So, it's not fun, but the lack of its opposite, that makes a job more enjoyable. I think the motto for workplaces should be "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Nirvana."
the more accurate the calculations became, the more the concepts tended to vanish into thin air. R. S. Mulliken
You are absolutely correct, however, a good manager knows his team, and whether they can handle poking fun at themselves without getting bent out of shape. I work in a shop where if you are thin-skinned, no matter how many trips to HR you make to complain, you'll be gone soon enough. I've been there ten years, and I'm the low man on the totem pole seniority-wise.
I don't think any manager should expect to look at a book or read slashdot for ideas about how to make their shop fun. If they can't figure it out, they're too out of touch and shouldn't try.
-- "In order to have power, I must be taken seriously." -Mojo Jojo
Everybody remembers the scene in Office Space where the whole room is covered in Post-It notes.
I did this.
I got in SOO much shit. My manager (the person who's office I did), kept bringing it up after 3 quarterly reviews and mentioned again for that last 2 Yearly reviews.
Then the fucker had the nerve to say that "We want to support an atmosphere of fun and play."
"The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men." ~Plato (427-347 BC)
Hey... don't knock shoveling turds for a living. I work at an animal control facility, and after you get past the grossnes of it, cleaning up after dogs etc gets a sort of rewarding feeling in its own right. I don't know if I'd personally ever be able to get comfortable with cleaning up human feces, but dog? No problem. But yeah, working with people that can occasionally get goofy prevents the days from dragging on. It can be almost essential during stressful periods. Maybe it's just the camaraderie that you build up, so when you're feeling stress just having people that you feel comfortable around takes a big load off.
On the other hand excessive (or innapropriate) clowning can sometimes have social drawbacks. Or just create a whole mess of extra work.
I'll never make that mistake again, reading the experts' opinions. - Feynman
Amen brother, amen. Politics and greed can torpedo even a very successful operation, especially when it results in resources and recognition being taken away from a group that is actually getting work done, in order to make a more politically savvy (but totally worthless) manager and his team of engineers on crack look like they are actually capable of doing their jobs. Do I sound bitter?
Working for a major telecom, with a group that stood up some fairly sophisticated network security services in under six months from scratch, we worked hard and played hard. Shorts, t-shirts, sandals and a less than 10 minute drive to work, coupled with the team doing things like skiing, white water rafting and hanging out in the local Irish pub outside of work ON THEIR OWN DIME, because we fed off each other's enthusiasm, skills and sharing of knowledge. And almost all of us left, because politics and personal greed screwed the lot of us.
That being said, in my 20+ years in the field I've also worked in places where employee satisfaction was a major focus (and am fortunate to be employed at such a place currently) - because the management "got it". So in addition to good compensation, I've experienced things such as taking our team out for lunch, having quarterly get togethers after work, telling someone to take their spouse/SO out for a nice dinner and expense it for a job well done, making sure that employees have time to spend outside of the office, and just letting folks take some time to hang out and shoot the bull at the office. If you manage based on results, instead of appearances, you can get a hell of alot of work out people who will be happy to do that work for you. And if you reward those results with the type of treatment that says clearly "I appreciate all of your hard work", it is a cycle that feeds on itself.
-- daecabhir (this mind intentionally left blank)