Hard business of having fun

While salaries and ben­e­fit pack­ages are impor­tant fac­tors in choos­ing where we work, three quar­ters of work­ers ques­tioned by recruit­ment group Adec­co ear­li­er this year said they would pre­fer to work for a com­pa­ny that pro­motes a fun atmos­phere.

“Gen­er­at­ing loy­al­ty and com­mit­ment need not be about hard cash,” says Adec­co direc­tor Andy Pow­ell. “In a strained econ­o­my, employ­ers would do well to focus on employ­ee well­be­ing and hap­pi­ness.”

The chal­lenge for employ­ers is how to bal­ance fun and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty. “The key to know­ing where to invest mon­ey is know­ing what you want to achieve upfront, and what suc­cess will look like,” advis­es Lor­raine Make­peace, head of tal­ent man­age­ment con­sul­tan­cy Chem­istry Group. “So if you want peo­ple to be more ener­gised and make more sales, that’s what you need to mea­sure.”

A third of UK com­pa­nies have sports teams, clubs and schemes that employ­ees can join but some com­pa­nies push the boat out just a lit­tle fur­ther. The Chem­istry Group’s most suc­cess­ful ‘fun’ project has been a com­pa­ny nutri­tion pro­gramme, which pro­vides employ­ees with advice on a ener­gy-rich diet, and invites work­ers to cook a meal togeth­er once a week.

Online retail­er Appli­ances Online has enshrined fun in its HR strat­e­gy with a pol­i­cy called “Engage Me”, which invites employ­ees to get togeth­er with col­leagues to take part in fun activ­i­ties, and the com­pa­ny will pay 50 per cent of the cost.

Snow­board­ing togeth­er is a great way to get peo­ple inter­act­ing

These activ­i­ties can include any­thing from Span­ish and gui­tar lessons to snow­board­ing and cook­ery work­shops, explains Nico­la Brown, peo­ple and engage­ment co-ordi­na­tor with Appli­ances Online. The com­pa­ny also invests in a beer fes­ti­val, Christ­mas par­ty and sum­mer gala for employ­ees, along with a sports day for employ­ees and their fam­i­lies. There are reg­u­lar dress-down Fri­days and employ­ee char­i­ty dri­ves, includ­ing one which saw 12 employ­ees climb Mount Kil­i­man­jaro and raise £100,000 for a local children’s youth cen­tre.

The Engage Me scheme has proved a par­tic­u­lar suc­cess with the company’s 400 employ­ees, but it has also ben­e­fit­ed the busi­ness, says Ms Brown. “Tak­ing a snow­board­ing les­son togeth­er or get­ting togeth­er after work to go ice skat­ing is a great way to get peo­ple from around the com­pa­ny inter­act­ing with one anoth­er, build­ing rela­tion­ships and friend­ships.”

The scheme has proved so suc­cess­ful that a dozen employ­ees recent­ly signed up for a brand new “fun” oppor­tu­ni­ty – a five-day snow­board­ing hol­i­day for more than a dozen Appli­ances Online staff – with the com­pa­ny sub­si­dis­ing 5 per cent of the cost. This has proven some­thing of a chal­lenge, Ms Brown con­fess­es: “It’s not easy to find five days when 12 peo­ple can all be out of the office, includ­ing the head of group finance!”

This warm and fuzzy fac­tor trans­lates into hard ben­e­fits for the com­pa­ny, how­ev­er. “What we get from it is far high­er lev­els of employ­ee engage­ment, reduced turnover and bet­ter moti­va­tion,” she says. “Despite the reces­sion we’re for­tu­nate to still be grow­ing as a busi­ness by 4 per cent a year and some of that is cer­tain­ly down to our peo­ple.”

While salaries and benefit packages are important factors in choosing where we work, three quarters of workers questioned by recruitment group Adecco earlier this year said they would prefer to work for a company that promotes a fun atmosphere.