Be Creative | Showcasing yours and your colleagues artistic skills can not only generate much fun and amusement (particularly if you have none!), but it can also be hugely therapeutic. Why not work together as a team to brighten up the office by creating a mural, photo board or even a customer compliment wall.
We did just this here at Paycare when we supported the ‘Turning Wolverhampton Orange’ campaign last year. To mark the global initiative aimed at eliminating violence against women and girls, we launched an internal competition for our team to come up with a handprint design which incorporated one fact about gender-based violence to mark. These handprints were then used to create a striking mural for our office wall. Not only did this see everyone join together as a team to do something fun, but we also did something hugely worthwhile J
Laugh | ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ as they say and can help draw people together, reduce stress, and strengthen the immune system. You may remember a few months ago one of our guest bloggers, Katie Woodland of Woodland Psychological Services, shared some handy hints on laughter generation through a blog section called ‘Feed Your Funny’ – all focused around building up a bank of funny YouTube clips for regular viewing. If you haven’t seen it, take a look here – and perhaps join together with colleagues to produce a joint collection J
On similar lines, why not give Laughter Yoga a go? This global phenomenon developed by Laughter Guru himself Dr Madan Kataria encourages laughter as a group exercise with no reliance on jokes or humour. The ‘science’ bit is that by experiencing prolonged intentional laughter, you exhale more carbon dioxide which oxygenates the body’s cells and the brain. And, which is why it is used in business environments in over 100 countries worldwide to help reduce workplace stress and create happy and energetic teams…
However you decide to celebrate, remember that having fun at work actually has very real tangible benefits. In fact, Dave Hemseth and Leslie Yerkes, co-authors of 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work, claim that those organisations which integrate fun into their work have lower levels of absenteeism, greater job satisfaction, increased productivity, and less downtime. So it really is win:win!
#HaveFunatWorkDay