Laughter and a Healthy Workplace
Laughter is the best medicine and a great way to keep your workplace healthy! I recall my early days in HR where we had something exciting or at times ‘unusual’ happening all the time. My favourite saying was “Never a dull moment”. And we giggled, and often laughed hysterically, every day.
We laughed with people, not at them. Hmmm, well, maybe on occasion someone was the subject of our laughter, but we self-corrected and learned from it. We had a lot of fun, even when times were tough, and laughter was a huge part of that.
“There is little success where there is little laughter”
Helen loves to laugh! Photo by FunLovePhotography
I’m sure most executives and business leaders may not think of laughter as a management tool to model, but I think many are realizing that laughter in the workplace is good for business. If it’s a fun place to work, chances are everyone is healthy, engaged and excited to be there. Leading with humour does work, even though it may not be encouraged. Take a look at your high-performance teams and you might uncover that laughter plays a significant role in the team's success.
It might be hard to measure laughter as part of business results. If leaders can improve the bottom line with humour in the workplace, it may prove to be an effective management style to consider in your corporate culture. We do need to be mindful that it’s not a comedy club atmosphere, and that insensitive or inappropriate jokes don’t cross the line into harassment or discrimination. It’s all about finding that right balance.
How Does Laughter Help Create a Healthy Workplace?
Laughter can create a healthier workplace, and in turn, benefit business. Let’s take a look at some of the positive outcomes. Laughter…
Releases endorphins, allowing employees to instantly feel happier.
Relieves stress, so employees don’t get overwhelmed.
Promotes creativity from being in a more relaxed state.
Inspires your people to see the world from a different perspective.
Helps create bonds with others.
Improves focus for better health and productivity.
Using humour lifts your team’s spirits and has proven health benefits. Since laughter can improve health, reduced absenteeism is a positive outcome. Laughter not only reduces stress and anxiety; it helps the lungs, heart, and brain. And bringing the heart and soul back into the workplace will help create the culture that drives your business growth.
When people laugh at the same thing, it brings them closer together. It creates bonds stronger than many other team-building exercises. Creating an open and positive environment where interpersonal relationships are fun and appropriate, will in turn impact relationships with clients as well.
Photo courtesy of Unsplash and christina@wocintechnochat.com
Exploring Laughter at Work
The workplace is filled with many types of personalities, introverts and extroverts, and everyone has their own sense of humour. This humour can differ immensely. People may not express this humour as they lack the self-confidence to do so.
Trying to be funny never works! Think about all of those speeches you’ve heard where the speaker tries to tell a joke and it lands flat! The most fun and honest laughter do not come from a forced joke. The funniest moments come from light-heartedness and often from those who see the bright side.
The humour comes as a product of positive thinking and is incorporated in a strong sense of self. The self-confidence is what helps bring out someone’s sense of humour. Even in the most difficult moments, with a complaining colleague or a frustrated customer, a tough situation can be lessened through humour.
With self-confidence comes an ability to allow one to express themselves authentically. If managers help people build this self-confidence, they can help their team build other skills. While professionalism is required it doesn’t mean that you can’t have humour and fun as part of that. This needs to be natural as if forced, the valuable benefits won’t surface.
Humour can Harm
With varying types of humour and with laughter being subjective, there also needs to be a word of caution. It’s important to understand when jokes or comments might be off-limits and cross the threshold into harassment or discrimination. Jokes aimed at cultural groups, gendered remarks, and stereotypical humour are unacceptable. In order to receive the full benefits of laughter, the humour must be authentic and non-offensive.
Also keep in mind that humour that is self-deprecating generally doesn’t work. Employees don’t respect people who put themselves down all the time. Discourage laughing at the expense of other team members, don’t laugh about someone, laugh with them. Remember it’s all about natural flow instead of “hey I need to be the funny one”. Don’t sweat the small stuff and it will be fine!
Laughter Eases Stress
The role of humour in business settings is to diffuse tension and build comfort in the environment. This in turn can help motivate employees and build momentum. It’s not really about joke-telling but rather creating a positive work culture where even tough times one can see the humour in the immediate circumstances. Employees often appreciate the attempt at humour in a difficult situation, even if it’s not perfect. Such humour tells employees that you are thinking of their interests.
Those unexpected moments of laughter work best and are beneficial when not overused. Spontaneous laughter and silliness is what creates a more positive and relaxed culture that will open up creativity and openness.
“It is impossible for you to be angry and laugh at the same time. Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive and you have the power to choose either.”
Ways to Bring Laughter to Work
First, create a positive work environment for your team. Make it safe for team members to be themselves. If the culture requires a shift from stressful or toxic to more collegial and inviting this may take some work, but you have to start somewhere! The benefits of laughter are only one part of a positive and healthy work environment that will impact your bottom line.
The benefits of laughter, and positivity overall, in the workplace can be felt more widespread when you lead by example. Smile and laugh. Enjoy yourself. Schedule special times for fun activities. One client I worked with made sure that development included fun team building as well as other learning. Fun and positivity are contagious!
There is still work to be done and goals and timelines to be met so it’s finding the right balance of seriousness and fun. Losing control will never set a good example, but loving the work you do, having fun with it and creating professional outcomes can still happen as a by-product of laughter and positive work environments.
A Laugh A Day Keeps the Dr. Away
Laughter can bring out the best in people. If you want to experience the health benefits of laughter at work, allow a little more humour in your workplace. Laughter’s physical and mental health benefits are real. Deep belly laughs can alleviate anxiety and stress and build high-performance engaged teams at work.
If you as a leader are aloof, or extremely serious, it makes it extremely tough to connect. Bringing in some humour which is a human condition that promotes unity can lift up spirits and allow your team to do amazing work! Remember laughter can create a healthy workplace so don’t suppress it.
Commit to joy and jokes … in a positive way! Knock Knock… who’s there?