Three Reasons Your Business Needs to Embrace Humor at Work and Take Humor Seriously!
Why does humor in the workplace matter? Why can any workplace benefit from more humor at work? Why take humor seriously in business? These are the questions I get asked most often from journalists – and for good reason. It’s all too easy to dismiss humor in the workplace as a trivial topic, as fluff or window dressing.
Yet, the research, and scads of anecdotal evidence, suggests that humor in the workplace matters now more than ever. Study after study after study has shown how more humor in the workplace leads to lower employee absenteeism rates, lower employee turnover rates, less stress, more creativity, improved teamwork, improved relationships, and better workplace communication. A recent meta-analysis of 49 different studies highlighted in the International Journal of Humor Research revealed that employees who have a positive sense of humor were linked to higher work performance, higher employee satisfaction, more team cohesion, better health, decreased burnout, and decreased stress at work.
So seriously, there are likely more than a dozen compelling reasons to take humor seriously in your workplace. Here are three of the higher-level reasons your workplace needs more humor.
Video Transcript: Why Your Workplace, Why Your Business Needs More Humor
A question I get asked very often from journalist and senior leaders in businesses is, “Come on, why should we take this topic seriously? Isn’t it a fluffy topic? A trivial topic? I mean, surely you can’t be serious about taking humor in the workplace seriously?” Well, I am serious and don’t call me Shirley. Here in fact are three reasons to take humor in the workplace serious.
#1. We know that culture drives success. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, it is your number one competitive advantage as long as you’re intentional about building a great culture. We know that the cultures that work most effectively are those cultures that embrace a spirit of fun, a spirit of humanity, passion. A little bit of humor and a little bit of creativity, humor is both a driver of a great culture but it also reflects success and reflects a positive culture. It reflects the fact that we’re doing everything right.
#2. The stories speak for themselves. There really are businesses all over the planet that are laughing all the way to the bank by leveraging their humor advantage to standout from the herd to be heard. To help them attract top talent and keep top talent. To help them attract customers and turn customers into raving passionate fans. They’re using their humor resources to lower stress and
lower health cost associated with stress and illness and people taking time off. We know that humor lowers absenteeism rates at work and that it improves employee retention rates. It improves productivity. It drives innovation and creativity. Humor drives results if you take it seriously and you’re intentional about using it in an effective way.
#3. It is just simply the fact that life is short and work has a huge impact on this short thing called life. Work affects our mental and physical health. It affects our families, our marriages, our kids. It affects who we socialize with, our identity, our personal growth as human beings, our sense of self worth. It gives us a sense of purpose. It affects our identity. It affects where you live and it’s a wee bit of a time sucker. It is the single biggest use of your energy, your talents, your passion in this short journey called life. I don’t know, I think we owe it to each other. We owe to our employees. We owe it to our customers. We owe it to our families. We owe it to our soles to create as positive, as inspiring as passionate, as humor filled the workplace as possible because work matters.
Michael Kerr is an international Hall of Fame business speaker, business trainer on workplace culture and very funny motivational speaker. He is the author of The Humor Advantage: Why Some Businesses Are Laughing All the Way to the Bank.
