Since it’s Friday I figured it would be a good day to address this topic.

Often times the word fun is a forgotten idea in many offices.  CEO’s, Supervisors, Managers, etc. all forget how to have fun over the course of a forty plus hour work week that is filled with meetings, deadlines, and bigger than all, stress.  However, stress is the exact reason why an office needs to find an outlet to have fun.

I’m in no way implying that your office has to be turned into some Willy Wonka Factory or you need to line the halls with video games and bean bag chairs.  Fun is a term that can be implied when it is the proper time to have fun.  Pending your office culture, your level of fun may be a quarterly retreat in which everyone on your staff gets to have fun and laugh while doing a ropes course.  Fun in your office may also be deemed as a happy hour every other week in which the company picks up the tab.

An office that plays together tends to stay together and if your office is filled with millennial and managers that enjoy a good laugh along with playing hard as a team then you should never lose sight of having fun.  If your office looks like a funeral just took place at 3pm in the afternoon then odds are your culture isn’t one that will recruit exciting employees.

Consider a few of these ideas to increase the “Fun” factor in your office:

1. Sign up for a competitive sports league

No matter how athletic your office may be, everyone has enough athletic ability to kick a rubber ball on a baseball field and play kickball or even compete on a beer league softball team.  Check out the parks and recreation leagues that are available or even for-profit sports leagues that are geared for this type of activity.  You can compete in Dodgeball, Mini Golf, Kickball, Softball, Basketball and many other leagues that usually are sponsored by a local bar to gather the team before, and or after the competition.  If team sports aren’t the answer then take the office for a Go Kart adventure one Thursday afternoon.  You will be amazed at how much fun everyone will have and the laughs will continue for weeks after the event.

2. Happy Hours are under-rated

I am in no way implying that drinking every Friday is a way to have fun, but I am implying that when you get the office out to a local bar or restaurant then the guards come down and the good memories are built.  Consider a monthly happy hour and mix up the location each time.  You will have office participation that will build friendships outside of the walls of working on projects and hitting deadlines and this office camaraderie and fun will transition your office culture over time.

3. Plan any event that gets your staff away from their desk

Pizza in the conference room, brunch on a Friday at the local café, ping pong tournament in the basement of the office, or whatever the fun event that gets your employees away from their desks for a few minutes can be the difference between a fun office culture and one that is buried in stress and anxiety.  Ask an assistant in the office to be your “Coordinator of Fun” once a month and you’ll have employees submitting ideas before the first activity or event is over with.

Having fun in the office is simply about creating a culture of people who love coming to work.  There is no direct correlation between fun and productivity, but there is a correlation between fun and a culture that promotes a desire to want to perform.  If this theory wasn’t true then Google, Microsoft, and other organizations wouldn’t have created campuses that are filled with activities to keep their employees engaged and on site to continue working late into the evenings.