How Humor Can Be Incorporated into the Workplace - Coursework Example

HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE Name: Institution affiliated: Date of submission: Tutor: TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction...............................................................................................................................3 Benefits of humor in the workplace...........................................................................................3 How humor can be incorporated into the workplace.................................................................7 Guidelines to humor in the workplace and the related obstacles to its adoption......................8 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9 References................................................................................................................................10 Introduction It is always said that laughter is considered the best medicine. It is, therefore, important to consider humor and laughter in any organization from the top most directors to the subordinate staff as it provides them with many benefits [Mon12]. In general, humor is important as it creates a favorable working environment for all employees within the organization and ensures that they remain motivated in their daily activities. The report aims to identify and discuss the benefits that are involved in the nurturing of humour in the workplace, how humour can be incorporated in the workplace and guidelines that can be used to recognize and incorporate humour into the workplace. Change is inevitable in any society. Julia and Hope, (2004) argued that change is the only constant thing in any organizational operations. In fact, change is credited with most of the improvement witness in the world. Humor has been identified to a bridge through which organizational changes can be achieved [Jul04]. Benefits of humor in the workplace Much improvement noticed in different fields and areas in the world result from embracing change and innovation. Certain measures can be applied internally to have a great impact on the competitive nature of the firm in its market. Reducing expenses would lead to more funds left aside to be used in other viable projects or in other departments in the company that could have a positive impact on the competitive edge of the Corporation [Bas01]. Some of these achievements to change and innovation in an organization can be achieved through the promotion of humor in the organization. The benefits that are derived from encouraging humor in the workplace are numerous but can be grouped into six major groups. These groups include communication, relationship building, productivity, problem-solving, leadership and health. On an individual level in the workplace, humor has also been identified to promote creativity and creative problem solving and stress reduction [Rob132]. Humor has been identified to promote effective communication within an organization. Among the benefits of humor identified by scholars in promoting communication are the facts that it increases persuasion and aids in learning. Humor in communication also gets people to listen to the speaker; it increases the long-term memory retention and increases the likeability of the speaker to the listeners [Cho]. Humor provides persuasion to the listeners where the people are likely to be in disagreement. Some messages are likely to create a mixed reaction among the listeners and humor can be used in such instances to distract them before they create counter arguments to the message. Humor helps in learning as it has been identified to reduce anxiety among the learners, therefore, creating a more positive and conducive learning atmosphere while facilitates the learning process. Humor provides a way forward for individuals to resolve their issues in stressful conditions. A speaker who consistently appropriately makes use of humor in the messages that they pass across will most likely make people wants to listen to the message being passed across [Jer11]. The speaker who appropriately uses humor is also likely to develop a favored attitude from the listeners. Finally, humor has been discovered to promote communication through increasing of long memory retention of listeners. Humor increases the concentration of the listeners, therefore, enhancing the students’ capability to process the message being passed across resulting in better learning (Christopher & James, 2012). Humour has also been identified to promote productivity in the workplace. It improves motivation, employee engagement within the organization, reduces absenteeism of the staff from work and reduces long-term burnout. Humour creates motivation among the workers and provides a working environment that promotes proper organizational culture. This also improves the morale of the employees thus making them more productive in their routine activities (Christopher, Timothy, & Joyce, 2015). Similarly, light-hearted managers usually encourage the employees to be actively engaged in their routine activities for the overall success of the organization to be achieved. Humour has also been identified to improve on employees’ performance as the employees remain joyful in their activities as well as being satisfied. Humour also creates cohesion among the employees which helps them to decrease stress thus reducing the probability of absenteeism of the employees for no proper reason. Finally, since humor has been shown to reduce instances of absenteeism and increase the loyalty of the employees to the organization, it also helps to prevent employee burnout thus increasing the productivity of each employee [Tha13]. In the workplace, it is important to create strong relationships among the members for better performance to be achieved through the better interaction of employees. Humor is a vital ingredient in developing strong relationships in the workplace as it ensures that builds strong relationships among the employees. Among the benefits of humor in building strong relationships are that it diffuses conflict, reduces status differentials, builds trust, connects with others and encourages people to work together [Sal14]. Humor provides individuals with a means through which they can facilitate their conversations as well as bridge their personal differences. Humor is usually used even in the international levels to create and establish peace in international mediation. Humor also builds trust among the employees as it is used to improve on the cohesiveness of the individuals as well as reducing the status differences. It provides the employees with an opportunity to build trust in team building among the different groups in an organization. In most organizations, there exists a gap between the managers and the employees. Humor can be used in such cases to bridge the social gap that exists between the two groups thus reducing the status differences that will allow for better organizational performance. Ultimately, humor connects people together and encourages them to work together as a unit for the greater goal of achieving a target objective. The response to humor by most individuals is that is automatically allows them to connect and interact socially. This helps to promote mutual investment among the employees for them to achieve the target that they have set [Dav14]. Among the benefits that have been identified when it comes to leadership includes the fact that it develops skills, creates opportunities, increases organizational profits and builds credible and competent individuals in the organization. The people in the workplace who use humor especially in the stressful situations are likely to be more in control of things and situations in the organization [Rod10]. Further research has identified that humor also creates more opportunities for development in the workplace. The staff that displays humor in the workplace are more likely to be given get more opportunities for growth and development of skills within the organization. Organizations that have developed successful humor programs and opportunities are usually linked with successful leadership. Encouraging humor creates a healthy relationship among all the member staff in the organization thus improving the performance and output that they provide. Better working performance increases the profits and compliance in the organization that in turn leads to the development of successful business culture. Humour also improves problem-solving as it reduces the stresses in the workplace that the staff has due to the role conflict in the workplace [Ste141]. On the issue of health, it is true that a healthy workforce will be more productive thus ensuring that the organization objectively achieves its targets. Studies have shown that humor and laughter can increase the relative blood flow of individuals in the organization. Humour and laughter also strengthen the immune system of individuals in the organization. A jovial individual is usually healthy as they ensure that they block the production of stress bodily hormones such as cortisol. Other important benefits of humor and laughter health wise include the burning of calories, relaxation of muscles and also increase happiness [Had13]. How humor can be incorporated into the workplace Research on the importance of humor has suggested that the incorporation of humor in an organization can easily develop and improve their performance. The incorporation of humor in the work place should be done and included as part of the organizational culture through the development of personal fun activities in the management. Among the suggested activities that can be used to incorporate humor in the workplace include, the creation of a humor bulletin board, introducing a humor break room, a tension release area, identify the cultural differences in the workplace and have fun dress-up days. Other ways through which humor could be incorporated in the organization include the introduction of fun awards and give gag gifts and finding humor in every day’s activities. In addition to these, the managers need to develop an environment that promotes humor in the workplace. Without such an environment, it would be hard for the employees to develop a culture that promotes humor in the workplace. The creation of a humor break room should contain joke books and funny props where the employees can utilize the room if they need to relax and laugh. A tension release area is an area where employees can play games while they take a break to reduce the instance of burn out by the employees. Having a fun dress day regularly is done by encouraging the employee to remain casually dress on such days so as they can feel free. Finding humor in every day’s situations would help the employees to make work related jokes without any annoyance to other people in the organization. Making the employees understand the cultural differences would help them to understand what type of humor is appropriate in what circumstance since what one group may see as humor may be received differently by another group. There are five ways through which the managers in an organization can use to incorporate humor in the workplace. These include the encouragement of employees to be themselves in the workplace, planning of social events and functions that encourage team building in the workplace regularly and developing guidelines on the type of humor in the workplace that is considered appropriate. Furthermore, the managers should start meetings in such a way that they provide the employees with an opportunity to relax before getting into work related activities and the creation of a humor file could also help the employees as they could read humorous work relate stories when they want to laugh or relax. Guidelines to humor in the workplace and the related obstacles to its adoption Humor has long been considered to be an important tool to build on employee relationship, improve communications among the employees and improve productivity within the organization. However, not all humor is considered positive by different individuals. Some humor, instead of building relationships may end up breaking them and at the time even reduce the flow of information and performance in the organization. Negative humor is an obstacle to performance and should be highly discouraged to ensure that the organization continues to improve in productivity and relationships. For humor to be viewed as professional and competent in an organization, some guidelines need to be observed to ensure that it works positively for the organization. Among the guidelines that should be used to ensure that humor remains a positive tool for organizational improvements include the use of humor to make fun on situations and not people. Humor should be used on situations because using it on people would not make them feel happy, relaxed and accepted. Negative humor that is used to make complaints about the workplace or insult those in higher offices should be avoided as it is likely to bring division in the workplace. Conclusion In conclusion, it is important for the managers and employees to understand the use of humor and have well-established guidelines that allow them to make positive use of humor in the organization. Humor should be highly encouraged in the organizations for productivity to be achieved within the organization. The employees should identify humor in the organization that is likely to be positive by ensuring that the employees relax and feel accepted in the organization. REFERENCES Mon12: , (Monica, 2012), Jul04: , (Julia & Hope, 2004), Bas01: , (Kathi, Fredrick, & Peter, 2001, pp. 1-2), Rob132: , (Robert & Carl, 2013), Cho: , (Chockalingam, David, & Jessica, 2012), Jer11: , (Jerald, 2011), Tha13: , (Jessica & Jason, 2013), Sal14: , (Salvatoore, 2014, p. 418), Dav14: , (David & Lu, 2014), Rod10: , (Rod, 2010, p. 367), Ste141: , (Steffen & Hege, 2014), Had13: , (Hadi, Rozeyta, & Norhani, 2013), Read More