User:JessicaLemieux/sandbox

Humour in the workplace
Humour is a ubiquitous, highly ingrained, and largely meaningful aspect of human experience and is therefore decidedly relevant in organizational contexts, such as the workplace.

The significant role that laughter and fun play in organizational life has been seen as a sociological phenomenon and has increasingly been recognized as also creating a sense of involvement among workers. Sharing humour at work not only offers a relief from boredom, but can also build relationships, improve camaraderie between colleagues and create positive affect. Humour in the workplace may also relieve tension and can be used as a coping strategy. In fact, one of the most agreed upon key impacts that workplace humour has on people’s well being, is the use of humour as a coping strategy to aid in dealing with daily stresses, adversity or other difficult situations. Sharing a laugh with a few colleagues may improve moods, which is pleasurable, and people perceive this as positively affecting their ability to cope. Fun and enjoyment are critical in people's lives and the ability for colleagues to be able to laugh during work, through banter or other, promotes harmony and a sense of cohesiveness.

Humour may also be used to offset negative feelings about a workplace task or to mitigate the use of profanity, or other coping strategies, that may not be otherwise tolerated. Not only can humour in the workplace assist with defusing negative emotions, but it may also be used as an outlet to discuss personal painful events, in a lighter context, thus ultimately reducing anxiety and allowing more happy, positive emotions to surface. Additionally, humour may be used as a tool to mitigate the authoritative tone by managers when giving directives to subordinates. Managers may use self-deprecating humour as a way to be perceived as more human and "real" by their employees. Furthermore, ethnography studies, carried out in a variety of workplace settings, confirmed the importance of a fun space in the workplace. The attachment to the notion of fun by contemporary companies has resulted in workplace management coming to recognize the potentially positive effects of “workplay” and realize that it does not necessarily undermine workers’ performance.

Laughter and play can unleash creativity, thus raising morale, so in the interest of encouraging employee consent to the rigours of the labour process, management often ignore, tolerate and even actively encourage playful practices, with the purpose of furthering organizational goals. Essentially, fun in the workplace is no longer being seen as frivolous. The most current approach of managed fun and laughter in the workplace originated in North America, where it has taken off to such a degree, that it has humour consultants flourishing, as some states have introduced an official “fun at work” day. The results have carried claims of well-being benefits to workers, improved customer experiences and an increase in productivity that organizations can enjoy, as a result. Others examined results of this movement while focusing around the science of happiness – concerned with mental health, motivation, community building and national well-being – and drew attention to the ability to achieve “flow” through playfulness and stimulate “outside the box” thinking. Parallel to this movement is the “positive” scholarship that has emerged in psychology which seeks to empirically theorize the optimization of human potential. This happiness movement suggests that investing in fun at the workplace, by allowing for laughter and play, will not only create enjoyment and a greater sense of well-being, but it will also enhance energy, performance and commitment in workers. JessicaLemieux (talk) 00:14, 8 August 2015 (UTC)