What makes an office environment fun?

[IglooDame]

The company I work for is moving to a new office site, six months after we were aquired by a new company and two-thirds of the company's office staff has been laid off. This leaves me as one of the most senior people in the new office, and I'm trying to take the opportunity to help get morale back up and make it a more pleasant/fun place to work, to move the needle closer to Google than Office Space or Yahoo.

The new space is somewhat crowded so while I've carved out a corner for a foosball table, there really isn't any space for anything larger like a billiards table or a separate meditation/party/whatever room. The survivors of the layoffs are mostly technical folks with a smattering of HR/marketing/finance/etc, and I think are open to improvements but not to mandatory fun or just making big deals of birthdays.

Do you have any experiences or suggestions to offer?

 

[Kyriakos]

Curves.

 

[Valka D'Ur]

What's the color scheme? Are people allowed to have personal items like photos or a knick-knack on their desks? What about plants? All these can make a difference in how relaxed people are (without becoming too relaxed).

 

[Morty]

Secret Santa? Christmas/Thanksgiving buffets (i.e. everybody brings in a different item of food) - anything that makes people mingle and interact.

 

[Synobun]

I think management style is the biggest contributor to an office's comfort level than any amenities you may have in the place. Having a party room, for example, doesn't mean much if your manager is a mean-mugging bastard.

My best experience in an office was one where being involved outside of work was quite common, and their break room had a free fruit platter. It helped with snacking, people would talk in there, and the extra-curriculars were benign enough that most could go to them. It was simple stuff like going to the gym together (since the company covered gym memberships), or going to a bar (and bars here are usually attached to restaurants, so drinking isn't mandatory), or some type of shared activity between the office members. The bar trip was usually every week while the other stuff happened as people were more available. The activities were always things that people actually did and determining that was the manager's responsibility. At one point there was a weekly yoga thing because over 70% of the office did yoga.

They also had an annual thing where employees would train in other departments for a couple weeks. They'd be a part of a new team, operate within a new system, and hopefully walk away from the experience with know-how and relationships they didn't have before. It ensured that everyone in the office knew everyone else and had at least a basic rapport with each and every single one of them. Better yet, they would also possess a basic understanding of what they do, completely negating the common problem of someone from a department complaining about a person from another department and it ending up being because of that person not having a single clue about what is going on and how things are done.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

During my brief stint as a state employee I was required to attend department meetings once a week, which took me into the office environment. I wanted to take notes and have a convenient way to bring them back to my shop and ignore them but still have them ready for the next week, so I brought a clipboard. After two weeks I stenciled "The Romans didn't build an empire by having meetings, they just killed everyone that didn't agree with them" on the back. That was fun.

Surprisingly, the department head decided that since my job really didn't require any coordination with anyone else in the department my attendance wasn't really necessary, which was even better.

 

[Zelig]

I dunno if you can really force it - it mostly comes down to having fun people.

Micromanagement or penny pinching is sure to grind fun out of people.

Being able to work remotely does wonders for my morale, I'd have quit if it wasn't an option.

Employees having real choice about what work they do and how they do it is good for morale.

I worked at an office with some coffee snobs, we had a fancy grinder and a french press and would order bags of beans online to try out. Whoever got in first in he morning would usually make it. Long-term, cheaper than a Keurig, but people need to be interested.

I worked at an office with some beer snobs - on Friday afternoons we'd walk over to the beer store and pick up a fancy beer or two each to drink at the office.

My office now does generic office social committee stuff (monthly birthdays, dumb games, etc.) I mostly just show up for the free food.

 

[BvBPL]

Putting color on the walls is one of the easiest and most effective ways to brighten up an office and improve the working conditions that no company ever seems to do. Hang as much art, paint as many accent walls, and do as many bold, abstract murals as you can get away with. The additional color will make the office feel more dynamic and exciting.

 

[Perfection]

The key to making work fun is making WORK fun. That is promote the enjoyment of the actual job functions.

 

[Zelig]

The key to making work fun is making WORK fun. That is promote the enjoyment of the actual job functions.

Obviously having soul-crushing work will have predictable results, but quality co-workers are super important to job satisfaction.

 

[Commodore]

The problem with making a fun work environment is everyone's definition of fun is different. So no matter what changes you make, it's always going to make the office better for some people and worse for others.

 

[W|M]

Karl might be able to help wrt office environments

 

[Kozmos]

Nothing brings people together as hating and female dogging about their superiors.

 

[warpus]

The company I work for is moving to a new office site, six months after we were aquired by a new company and two-thirds of the company's office staff has been laid off. This leaves me as one of the most senior people in the new office, and I'm trying to take the opportunity to help get morale back up and make it a more pleasant/fun place to work, to move the needle closer to Google than Office Space or Yahoo.

The new space is somewhat crowded so while I've carved out a corner for a foosball table, there really isn't any space for anything larger like a billiards table or a separate meditation/party/whatever room. The survivors of the layoffs are mostly technical folks with a smattering of HR/marketing/finance/etc, and I think are open to improvements but not to mandatory fun or just making big deals of birthdays.

Do you have any experiences or suggestions to offer?

Yeah, make sure that all your games (foosball, ping pong, whatever) are in a separate room, and not in the room where your cubicles are or whatever. Otherwise that is going to be incredibly disruptive and/or you might have to ask people to only play during lunch or after hours or whatever. You say that your office space is crowded, so whoever ends up sitting beside the loud gaming setup is probably not going to have a very good time.

Other ideas:

- dress down fridays
- hold a pot luck once a month and have a different theme each time (i.e. south american food, food starting with the letter T, season-specific food, etc.)
- allow people to flex their time and work from home

 

[tetley]

Removing the competition against each other and making it a competition of our company vs. the rest of the market. As it should be. "Friendly" competitions amongst coworkers are okay, but when you're competing year-round against each other for performance raises (in other words the real money), that creates a coopetition environment in the workplace at best. Miserable at worst.

Color schemes, parties, lava lamps, and all that are only makeup you use to cover the blemishes. You're better off just not having blemishes.

 

[Commodore]

Nothing brings people together as hating and female dogging about their superiors.

That's a good way to get fired too. I remember one job I had where the management saw I was former military intelligence and wanted me to use those skills to "root out" the complainers on top of my normal duties. Their logic was that complainers lowered workforce morale, and therefore productivity, so they needed to be found and removed.

 

[Hakim]

A small table with drugs and liquor on it.

 

[Synobun]

A small table with drugs and liquor on it.

Cough drops and some aspirin would help an office environment, I agree. Lets people take care of minor ailments right then and there instead of suffering through it until clock out time.

 

[Zelig]

People with communicable disease have no place in an office.

 

[Kozmos]

That's a good way to get fired too. I remember one job I had where the management saw I was former military intelligence and wanted me to use those skills to "root out" the complainers on top of my normal duties. Their logic was that complainers lowered workforce morale, and therefore productivity, so they needed to be found and removed.

Ah, the wisdom of management, that cancerous growth on every good business. Oh for sure office politics plays its part and there are a select few who like to snitch, but from my experience everyone finds out who it is and that person enjoys the benefits of trying to cooperate with a hostile office.