Running Head: FUN IN THE WORKPLACE

Literature Review of Fun in the Workplace

Hector Villarreal

St. Edward’s University

November 25, 2018

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Literature Review of Fun in the Workplace

In a lifetime, full-time employees will spend more than 90,000 hours on the job, too

much time not to have fun while they are there. The concept of fun at work has been emphasized

by a growing number of companies and practitioners. For example, from the Fortune magazine

“The 100 best companies to work for in America” including Amazon, Facebook, Southwest

Airlines, Google, and Pixar, have emphasized the role of fun in the workplace (Karl, Peluchette,

hall, & Harland, 2005). Much of the popular literature suggests that fun at work is an easy and

accurate way to increase engagement, heighten productivity and improve morale.

Even well-known culture gurus argue that managers should implement fun activities at

work to help revitalize employees’ motivation and productivity, and reduce stress (Karl et al.,

2005). Similarly, other studies suggest that workplace fun may be reasonable job satisfaction

that cultivates morale, and improves the quality of customer service. The review of the scientific

literature, however, acknowledges that despite adding elements of fun to the workplace creates

an effective way to improve the organizational environment, management should take a tentative

approach and be aware of the implications that come along with doing so. Notwithstanding, the

increasing popularity of implementing fun activities at work to seek positive outcomes, opposing

studies suggest that workplace fun may do more harm than good. Such studies recognize that the

attempt to create pleasure from what may be mundane or stressful work is no easy task and that

several factors including age and personality may affect an employee’s perception of fun.

Altogether, workplace fun demonstrates to influence a variety of different aspects of an

organization including attraction, recruiting, retention, turn over, employee’s satisfaction and

performance, and strength of corporate culture (Ford, McLaughlin, & Newstrom, 2003). The
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present paper attempts to synthesize both, the positive and negative impacts of workplace fun

with the focus in recruiting, retention, and performance.

Definitions of Fun at Work

One of the most popular definitions comes from Flugge (2009), who defines fun at work

as “any social, interpersonal, or task activities at work of playful or humorous nature which

provide an individual with amusement, enjoyment, or pleasure.” Another definition comes from

McDowell (2005), who stated that fun at work is defined as “engaging in activities not

specifically related to the job that is enjoyable, amusing or playful”. Furthermore, Ford et al.

(2003) defines fun at work as “work environment that intentionally encourages, initiates and

supports a variety of enjoyable and pleasurable activities that positively impact the attitude and

productivity of individual groups.” Consistent with the definition by Ford et al. (2003) they

explain that the organization intentionally promotes the fun. It is important to note that, there are

distinct conceptualizations and constitutes of fun in the workplace in the literature (Twes,

Michel, & Barlett, 2012; Ford, McLaughlin, & Newstrom, 2014). For example; while Fluegge

(2009) emphasized fun activities shall be included in task activities, McDowell (2005)

highlighted that fun activities are excluded from task activities at work.

What makes work environment fun?

One of the more challenging issues for managers wishing to create a fun work

environment is to determine exactly what makes a work environment fun. In their great study on

workplace fun, Ford et al. (2003) administered a questionnaire to survey 572 practicing human

resources managers on various aspects of fun at work. To obtain this data, the questionnaire

contained ten general categories of fun activities frequently mentioned in the literature as good

ways to promote a fun work environment. Some of these ten items included (celebrations,
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entertainment, playing games, having friendly competitions, social events, and humor). The

results of Ford et al. (2003) study found two essential things in the responses from their

participants; first, that nearly everyone does three specific activities to promote a fun work

environment and second, that there is a wide variation in other activities that organizations offer

to create a fun work environment. That is, there is no widespread consensus as to which

exercises work best.

Interestingly, the top three activities seem relatively traditional. The results have

demonstrated that the most frequently used actions to spark fun at work in the USA are: casual

dress day, employee recognition and rewards, and company-provided food and refreshments

(Ford et al., 2003).

Types of fun at work

According to Bolton & Houlihan (2009), who studied the “contemporary experience in

the workplace,” there are three different types of fun at work, namely, the “managed variety,”

“natural or organic fun,” and “task related.” Not only that, but Bolton & Houlihan (2009)

criticize mainstream literature for its disregard of the distinction between “manufactured” and

“organic fun” in the workplace. Manufactured fun, “that which is imposed or required, may

create an environment of cubicle decorating cynics.” On the other hand, organic fun is a

“descendent of positive organizational culture and will thrive in the most diverse workplace”

(Bolton & Houlihan, 2009).

In a similar vein, a research study by McDowell (2005), who studied “the complexity of

promoting fun at work,” developed different scales of fun at work which included socializing

with coworkers, celebrating at work, personal freedoms, and global fun at work. In this massive
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study conducted by McDowell (2005), the author claims that fun and humor in the workplace

reduce stress and may lead to a healthier workplace.

Fun at work is a vague concept that encloses a wide variety of fun activities, some of the

most favored activities include: “social events, celebrations, socialization, and friendly

competitions” (McDowell, 2005). Other classifications on types of fun at work come from Chan

(2010), who provides a useful typology of workplace fun activities in the hospitality industry,

namely staff-oriented, supervisor-oriented, and social-oriented workplace fun. In this typology,

staff-oriented activities include personal celebrations and events such as “birthdays, marriage,

and retirement.” Supervisor-oriented workplace fun activities include “lunches, breaks, and

informal gathering after work with immediate supervisors.” The author also reported that

hospitality firms often sponsor social-oriented workplace fun activities such as “company

picnics, holiday parties, and charity fun” (Chan, 2010).

According to Chan (2010), there are many factors on having fun in the workplace, and

specifically that humor and fun can positively impact employees; serving as a temporary escape

from the tension of work. In a case study approach to a small industrial and retail business

conducted by Chan (2010), researchers found a hierarchy of humor categories, which covered

four main areas including the use of “puns, wasting time, jokes, and teasing to get things done”.

The jokes were further sub-categorized into self-ridicule, risqué jokes, and industry jokes (Chan,

2010).

Following this, in a study of 106 participants of combined managers and subordinates,

Martin, Rich, and Gayle (2004) found that males engaged in more negative and expressive

humor than females did, that, male subordinates used more humor than female subordinates, and

that subordinates reported using more real humor than managers did. Besides, Martin et al.
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(2004) examined the result of prior research using meta-analysis to explore humor’s potential

role in organizational and employee effectiveness. Alternatively stated, the results suggest

employee humor is associated with enhanced work performance, satisfaction, workgroup

cohesion, health, and coping effectiveness, as well as decreased burnout, stress, and work

withdrawal (Martin et al., 2004).

Moreover, in another study, Smeltzer and Leap (1998) examined the acceptability of

different types of joking behavior in the workplace and focused on racist, sexist and neutral jokes

in the work settings. They found that women regarded sexist jokes as less appropriate than men

and woman were more offended by racist jokes than sexist jokes. Overall, workers described

using more positive than negative humor and that jokes and stories positively enhanced the work

environment.

Altogether, workplace fun shows to affect enhancing a variety different aspect of an

organization including, work environment, work performance, employee satisfaction, as well as

reduce stress in employees and lead to a healthier workplace. Again, the present paper will

discuss on three main areas of impact: recruiting, retention, and employee performance.

Recruiting and Attraction

A stream of research by Tews (2015) and colleagues focused on the impact of fun in the

context of applicant attraction. This study focused on fun activities, coworkers socializing and

fun job responsibilities with a sample of undergraduate job seekers who evaluated scenarios.

Tews et al. (2015) found that perceived workplace fun does have an impact on employee

attraction and that in the early stages of recruiting perceived fun is more sought after that

opportunity for advancement and compensation (Tews et al., 2015).

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On the same subject, in Ford et al. (2003) research, he surveyed 572 practicing human

resources managers on various aspects of fun at work, including the advantages and

disadvantages of workplace fun. Results showed 94 percent of HR managers reported moderate

to substantial increment of the ability to attract new employees when a fun work environment

was present. The attraction of new employees was the most frequently reported advantage at

workplace fun in the study. Ease of employee attraction was found to be scientifically related to

a variety of different types of workplace fun. This contradicts the results of Tewes et al. (2014),

which is most likely due to the significant age difference (undergraduate students vs.

professional HR managers) of the participants in each study.

By contrast, Redman & Mathews (2002) addressed the issue from the viewpoint of the

recruiter. They suggest that recruiters in fun organizations should attempt to determine whether

or not the applicant has the same “fun” qualities as the organization by asking questions about

candidates’ “heart”, “attitude”, and “sense of humor” (Redman & Mathews, 2002). Utilizing

both of these theories part of a two-way recruiting strategy would benefit the organizations

looking to incorporate their fun work environment into their selection procedures.

In general, the findings that fun does have a positive impact on applicant attraction and,

that fun is more important than compensation opportunities for advancements when evaluating

advertisements during the early stages of the recruiting process. Notwithstanding, the results also

demonstrated that not all aspects of workplace fun are valued equally. In the later stages of the

recruiting process, fun coworker interactions and fun job responsibilities had a stronger impact

on applicant attraction than regular fun activities. Redeman et al. (2002) study illustrated that

first; workplace fun should be a central focus of recruiting efforts. Next, that in recruiting media
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like, Facebook, Indeed, and LinkedIn, greater emphasis should be fun relative, to other job and

organization characteristics.

Finally, given that fun coworker interaction and fun job responsibilities were

demonstrated to be more important than formal fun activities in the context of on-site job

interviews, such aspects of fun should be emphasized by interviews during the phase of

recruiting. While the results of Redman & Mathews (2002) study, suggest that fun is a focus of

recruiting efforts, such a discussion should not be advocated if the workplace is not fun, in such

instance, management should focus on the mean to enhance fun in the workplace and then

market job vacancies accordingly. If applicants’ pre-hire perceptions of the workplace are not

congruent with their subsequent experiences on the job, they may become dissatisfied and

ultimately leave the organization (Redman & Mathews, 2002).

Retention and Turnover

Very little research has been published in rigorous empirical sources in the area on how

workplace fun impacts on retention and turnover. One piece of information comes from Tews et

al. (2015), who studied how fun in the workplace impacted turnover. In this study they found

that fun is instrumental in reducing turnover among entry-level employees and that not all

pleasure is equal in reducing turnover, suggesting that consideration is paid to all the form it

takes. Despite its limitations, Tewes et al. (2015) research represents a step toward obtaining a

sharper focus on how workplace fun shapes an individual’s experience on the job and their

decision to remain or leave an organization. In addition, Tewes et al. (2015) defines fun activities

as celebrations, contests, team building activities and social events. In the same way, Ford et al.

(2003) stated that an organization would improve its ability to “attract new employees, have

better customer’s satisfaction, stronger employee’s commitment, and lowered employee’s

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turnover and absenteeism by creating and maintaining a fun work environment.” While

management support for fun was defined as the “extent to which managers allow and encourage

employees to have fun on the job”, it is important that this distinction be made because while the

results showed that fun activities were not related to voluntary turnover, manager support for fun

was negatively associated with turnover (Ford et al., 2003).

Productivity, Performance, and Engagement

An abundance of anecdotal evidence reflecting a similar sentiment and suggests that fun

at work should enhance employee performance. Having fun at work may be seen as a positive

event, noted Cooper (2005) which thereby “creates a positive environment which then promotes

productivity, performance, and engagement.” Just as, Van Oech (1982) stated that “a fun

working environment is much more productive than a routine environment,” Cooper (2005)

study, suggests that fun at work enhance employee engagement and consequently a fun working

environment, facilitates employee productivity.

Furthermore, of the human resources managers surveyed in Ford’s et al. (2003) study,

seventy-four percent reported that workplace fun had a positive impact on the quality of

employee productivity and fifty-nine percent reported impact on the speed of learning a new

task. Interestingly, in another study where Schaufer (1997) also investigated about job

engagement, he found that a “positive, fulfilling, work-related, state of mind that is characterized

by vigor, dedication, and absorption” and in the same way, it “refers to a more persistent and

pervasive affective-cognitive state that is not focused on any particular object, event, individual,

or behavior” (Schaufer, 1997).

In a different study by Ford et al. (2003), designed to investigate the relationship between

fun at work and work engagement; analyses were conducted from a sample of 66 respondents.
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The results of these analyses found that socializing with co-workers had the highest mean score

compared to other fun at work scales. Altogether, there was a significant positive relationship

between pleasure at work and work engagement. Thus, as fun at work increases, the work

engagement will also (Ford et al., 2003).

According to Flugge (2009), work engagement concerns the degree to which individuals

make full use of their cognitive, emotional, and physical resources to perform role-related work.

In his recent study Flugge (2009) found that fun at work is positively related to work

engagement. In a separate study conducted by Schaufer (1997), he states that work engagement

is “positively related to job characteristics that might be labeled as resources, motivators, or

energizers for example, social support from coworkers and their superiors, performance, task

variety, feedback, job autonomy, coaching, and training facilities.” Equally important, in Ford et

al. (2003) study, the authors explained that many leaders focus on promoting worker engagement

to help engender a workforce that is “stimulated, involved, inspired, and receptive to change and

goes well beyond just being present.”

Advantages and Disadvantages of Fun at Work

As noted above, existing literature generally supports the idea that there are both

advantages and disadvantages for the employee. Popular press articles include a variety of

positive outcomes that may stem from this practice. It has been suggested that happy or satisfied

workers suffer less stress, show higher levels or organizational citizen behaviors, miss less work,

are more creative, have better and more rewarding friendships at work than those who are not

happy (Ford et al., 2003). From the human resource managers surveyed in Ford et al. (2003)

study, 572 respondents; strongly favor promoting a fun work environment, because they believe

that those environments offer great benefits both to the individual and the organization. They
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also found that 74 percent reported that workplace fun had a positive impact on the quality of

employee productivity and 59 percent said a positive effect on the speed of learning new tasks.

Surprisingly, Ford et al. (2003) even found that more than 80 percent of managers felt

that accidents rates, sexual harassment reports, equipment damage, and error rates would not be

hindered by the addition of fun to the workplace. These results are surprising as it indicates that

even items that may traditionally be thought of as disadvantageous to productivity are really not

disadvantaged at all. Moreover, McDowell´s (2005) research suggested that satisfaction can

significantly affect an employee’s performance, commitment, and cognition, both on and off the

job. Ultimately, as stated by Ford (2008) “an organization is only as successful as its employees,

and it follows that works must achieve a sufficient level of job satisfaction to remain

productive.”

Despite its potential benefits, other qualitative studies have cast workplace fun in a more

critical light. For example, Taylor and Bain (2003) illustrated that supervisor efforts to sponsor

fun may at times be counterproductive. For instance, senior managers could be resistant to

participating in the fun as such endeavors would “encroach on their already busy schedules”

when confronted with work overload and other job stressors. There are studies from different

authors, for example: Fleming (2005), Fleming and Sturdy (2009), Redman and Mathews (2002)

and Warren and Fineman (2007) that detailed mixed results for different organizationally

sponsored fun initiatives that encompassed elements such as social events, play and freedom for

personal expression. Although some employees enjoyed and appreciated these initiatives, other

employees were resistant and skeptical; in fact, Fleming (2005) found that many employees

disliked company-sponsored fun, considering it inauthentic and fake.

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In addition, Fleming and Sturdy (2009) found that some employees were resistant to

participation in outside social activities, forged interest in company fun and hid their real

identities when personal expression was encouraged. Although fun could be beneficial, these

various studies highlight that implementing fun in the workplace is not as straightforward as

portrayed in popular press publications Ford et al. (2003) reported that 60 percent of the human

resources managers who participated in their study agreed that employees would not care about

workplace fun. 58 percent agreed that there is no evidence that workplace fun will work. 56

percent agreed that creating workplace fun is not part of their job, and 55 percent agreed that

having workplace fun is inconsistent with an organization’s productivity culture. It is safe to

argue that the results of this study can relieve managers from such fear to have fun in the

workplace.

Conclusion

While there are still many questions to be answered and much research to be done, we

can safely conclude that implementing fun in the workplace is a convoluted balancing act of

several different dimensions. As a conclusion of this research, we can affirm that pleasure should

not necessarily be examined as a unitary construct. Instead, the analysis should treat workplace

fun as a multidimensional construct to fully understand the fun workplace phenomena.

A review of the literature on workplace fun allows us to conclude that there is very little

information published in empirical sources on how workplace fun might directly impact

employee retention and turnover. It is important to acknowledge that even if it seems plausible

that fun at workplace my correlate to job satisfaction and can profoundly affect life satisfaction

while conversely, job dissatisfaction can affect “physical and emotional health, which may lead
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to tardiness, absenteeism and turnover. In addition, different studies have demonstrated that fun

at work is positively related to work engagement and employee performance.

These studies indicate that incorporating fun in the workplace can affect the aspects of

employee attraction and recruiting, retention and turnover, satisfaction and performance, and the

strength of corporate culture in both positive and negative ways. As noted by Guitard (2005),

having fun is the highest level of need for employees and often unmet at work. Given the

positive effects of workplace fun, managers should carefully choose the types of workplace fun

activities with a specific purpose in mind. It is imperative to note that traditional work

organizations’ assumption that any form of workplace fun interferes with, and detracts from

productivity is an old-time story, especially with fun-loving Generation Y (Ford et al., 2003).

Ultimately, these studies are not without their limitations; future research can investigate

the impacts of implementing fun activities in the workplace among different age generations. As

noted by Baptiste (2009), senior managers could be resistant to participating in the fun while

other generations might prefer to participate fully. While humor and play were at times reported

as contributors to the experience of joy at work, this was not uniformly the case among both

genders.

To conclude this literature review, it could be argued that implementing fun activities at

work might be an overall affirmative strategic plan to increase employee performance.

Simultaneously, managers should take in consideration that first, there are different

categorizations of fun; second, people have different conceptions to the meaning of fun; and

finally, that fun at work could impact positively to bring the best of us as employees.
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Annotated Bibliography

Bakker, A. B., Albrecht, S. L., & Leiter, M. P. (2011). Work engagement: Further reflections on
the state of play. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 20(1), 74–
88.

Bolton, S. C., & Houlihan, M. (2009). Are we having fun yet? A consideration of workplace fun
and engagement. Employee Relations, 31(6), 556-568.

Chan, S. H. (2010). Does workplace fun matter? Developing a useable typology of workplace
fun in a qualitative study. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 29(4), 720-
728.

Fleming, P. (2005). Workers’ Playtime? The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, 41(3), 285–
303.

Fluegge, E. (2009). Who put the fun in functional? Fun at work and its effects on job
performance. Dissertation Abstracts International Section A, 69, 2781.

Ford R, McLaughlin F and Newstrom J (2003) Questions and answers about fun at work,
Human Resource Planning 26(4), 18-33

Guitard, P., Ferland, F. & Dutil, E. (2005). Toward a better understanding of playfulness
in adults. Occupational Therapy Journal of Research, 25, 9-22.

Karl K, Peluchette J, Hall, L and Harland, L (2005) Attitudes Toward Workplace Fun: A
Three Sector Comparison, Journal of Leadership and Organizational Studies 12(2): 1-17

Martin, D., Rich, G., & Gayle, B. (2004). Humor works: Communication style and
humor functions in manager/subordinate relationships. The Southern
Communication Journal, 69, 206-222.

Mcdowell T (2005) Fun at work: Scale development, confirmatory factor analysis, and
links to organizational outcomes, Dissertation Abstracts International: Section B: The
Sciences and Engineering 65(12-B): 6697.

Plester, B. (2009). Crossing the line: boundaries of workplace humor and fun. Employee
Relations, 31(6), 584–599.

Redman T and Mathews B (2002) Managing Services: Should We Be Having Fun?, The
Service Industries Journal 22(3): 51-62.

Schaefer, C. & Greenberg, R. (1997). Measurement of playfulness: A neglected

therapist variable. International Journal of Play Therapy, 6, 21-31.
FUN IN THE WORKPLACE Villarreal 15

Smeltzer, L., & Leap, T. (1988). An analysis of individual reactions to potentially

offensive jokes in work settings. Human Relations, 41, 295-304.

Taylor, P., & Bain, P.(2003). Subterranean worksick blues: Humour as subversion in two call
centres. Organization Studies, 24, 1487-1509.

Tews, M. J., Michel, J. W., & Allen, D. G. (2014). Fun and friends: The impact of workplace fun
and constituent attachment on turnover in a hospitality context. Human Relations, 67(8),
923–946.

Tews, M. J., Michel, J., Xu, S., & Drost, A. J. (2015). Workplace fun matters … but what else?
Employee Relations, 37(2), 248–267.