What makes an office environment fun?

[Synobun]

People with communicable disease have no place in an office.

But sharing is caring.

 

[Akka]

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

TBH, I hardly see any way to make the workplace fun when you work for people who laid off 2/3rd of the staff.
Except maybe by pushing the executives responsible for it down the stairs or the windows, which might please quite a lot of people.

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.

Well, I guess it also make for an easily winnable redress ?

 

[Perfection]

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

I agree 100% on the importance of that. When I underscored the importance of the work itself being fun, i wasn't talking about the on-paper job descriptions but the actual activities and interactions that go along with it.

People with communicable disease have no place in an office.

I consider douchiness a communicable disease.

 

[Perfection]

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

Always remember that your boss is not your superior. Your boss is your customer.

 

[warpus]

We have a "quiet area" at work where you can go and relax a bit and get away from it all. There's a large window facing a scenic hill, comfy couches, and a fake fireplace. It's connected to the rest of the office so it isn't entirely quiet, but on an average day it'll be quiet enough and you can sit down there and just chill for a while. Sometimes I go there with a book and I read for 10 minutes, then head back to work.

As for people who come into work sick, those are the worst people. Not only are they less productive due to their illness, they also prolong their illness by refusing to look after it and staying home. They also get everybody else in the office sick in the process.

If you're sick be a team player and stay home and look after your stupid flu. Don't be selfish and get everybody else sick too.

 

[tetley]

Except that you have bosses who don't believe you're really "sick". It's amazing how everybody gets sick on a Friday and when the weather is beautiful out.

 

[Timsup2nothin]

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.

I find this hilarious, since the concept "a [complaining] sailor is a happy sailor" was ubiquitous at every assignment through my naval career. Approaching someone with a military intelligence background with an assignment that runs counter to basic military philosophy is great irony.

 

[BvBPL]

- 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.)

That sounds awful. It is nearly impossible to have a pot luck at the office and serve good food. Have it catered.
For that matter, I might be happier if my coworkers dressed more professionally.

 

[Quintillus]

It turns out I like my office more than I realized, and I wrote an essay instead of a post reply.

Spoiler Why My Office is Fun :

I worked at a large insurance company, and my office environment is fun. Which probably isn't what you'd expect at a large insurance company, and indeed my previous team's office environment wasn't very fun, but my current one is.

Since 2/3 of the staff was laid off, you're at a significant disadvantage out of the gate. One of the top priorities (particularly for getting morale back up) should be making sure there are guarantees that there won't be further layoffs. Obviously this may not be in your control, but until there's a sense of stability I imagine good morale and a fun environment will be difficult to come by.

I largely agree with Vincour. The management in my area is a significant contributor to it being a fun environment. We have two de facto managers, with another one higher up who we see perhaps once a week. They practice what one of them called "servant leadership" - their main task is to make sure we can do our job and help remove obstacles, not to watch us 40 hours a week. We have a meeting each morning where we note what we did, and if we need help, whether from someone else on the team or from our "blocker remover" manager who plays the role of being the guy who lets other teams know "hey, we actually need this, Joe isn't just requesting it for fun". This both motivates us to not be in a position of "I twiddled my thumbs for 8 hours yesterday" while making sure we aren't twiddling our thumbs for 8 hours because of some other thing we couldn't fix. But anyway, this "blocker remover" manager is a sociable guy, joins us at happy hours, organizes team lunches every so often, and despite being sort-of-de-facto a manager, is as much a part of the team as anyone.

Our de jure manager works more with our business partners, but it's not uncommon for him (a former developer, a role that I and about half the other team members have) to come over and talk with the developers casually, sometimes about technical stuff but as often about his planned hunting expedition the next weekend, or the latest cats that he and his wife are fostering. It probably sounds almost too casual, but it means that everyone's comfortable talking with him, no one's on edge when he asks for a meeting with them, and he can bring up things he'd like us to work on as appropriate (although we're actually a pretty functional team, so those occurrences have been few and far between). It definitely helps that he used to be in our role, too, so he knows what it's like and that estimate are estimates. Basically, everyone's legitimately happy to see their manager.

Both managers are also very open with plans for the future. What projects we'll be working on next (either in a few weeks or next year), staffing plans for next year (in terms of number of positions by role, at a minimum), how the annual evaluation process works in significant detail, and so forth. It results in less uncertainty (which I'm sure will be appreciated after layoffs), and people liking to work with the managers.

As for environment, we talk with each other a fair amount, about both work-related and non-work-related topics. And the tone for talking about non-office-related things is set by management, and makes a huge difference in it being a fun environment versus a staid, quarantined-from-people-who-are-five-feet-a-way-from-you library type atmosphere. It ranges from the simple, "Anyone got any good plans for the weekend?" at our morning meeting on Fridays, to our "blocker remover" manager talking with people individually about casual topics if he and someone else are early to the meeting, to him occasionally staying late and discussing topics ranging from traveling to his daughter's post-college job prospects to how to improve our work environment with whoever is still there or is walking out with him, to our de jure manager wandering over after lunch to discuss guns for no specific reason. Since management is okay with discussing casual, not necessarily related to work at all things, other people feel comfortable talking with each other too, and this leads to an environment that is fun, and where people are comfortable talking with each other for any reason, which in turns helps productivity as well.

And this is important enough that it's worth calling out again - management should talk casually with people about various non-work related things, out of actual interest in their employees and the topics being discussed. Where management hasn't done this, I've been in quiet environments where I only get to know a few of my coworkers, and have little attachment to the company. Where they have - primarily this position - the work day is more enjoyable, I actually want to get up and go in to the office in the morning, and I know most of my coworkers fairly well (which also motivates me to stay with the company and team).

This also leads naturally to other fun events, some planned by management, but many not. We have team lunches or happy hours for things like birthdays, but most days there also is at least one group of team members who go out to lunch together. Occasionally we schedule a happy hour for no other reason than liking beer and liking hanging out with each other. There are various team jokes, traditions, and nicknames, all of which came up organically at some point or another. The traditions are optional, but tend to get fairly good participation. We revitalized an old one last month simply because a few of us were discussing it at lunch, said, "Why don't we start doing that again?", and sent out an invitation; one of the managers participated as well (and the other had been the inspiration). Occasionally we partake in various completely-outside-of-work events as a group, like going to an agricultural festival in a city near where one of our team members grew up after work one day in October. Again, the regular employee organized it, but one of our managers joined on the trip too, and we were happy to have him along.

Most other stuff is ancillary, though worth considering. We're flexible with people going to appointments - dentists', doctors', car service, etc. - so that doesn't stress anyone out. There's a ping-pong table a couple floors down (in its own room so it isn't a distraction), but only a couple people regularly play ping-pong, so it's only a minor part of the environment being fun. We occasionally go down to the local coffee shop as a group in the afternoon (for which being comfortable with each other is a prerequisite, and it's never planned in advance), but we occasionally share tea with each other too. Working from home when ill is encouraged (no one likes getting sick because someone else came in when sick), and is okay occasionally other times, but you are encouraged to come into the office whenever you aren't ill due to the benefits of the team atmosphere - and most people are happy to come in every day. No one cares if you take a reasonably-length break during the day to clear your mind, stretch your legs, call your dentist, etc. There's only one person on the team who's known for taking too long of breaks (i.e. disappearing for an hour or more multiple times a day), and everyone knows who that is, and it reflects on them. But generally, we trust each other. Sometimes people bring in treats to eat too, for no reason other than they feel like it, whether homemade baked goods, cookies from the store downstairs, or making waffles for the team for breakfast. It improves morale and makes work fun, but only works because we like each other.

By comparison, at a company I worked at previously, we had potlucks every so often, and people would bring food in. But there was no communal table to eat at, so everyone went back to their desks to eat, and since management was very quiet, most of the time people would just eat the potluck food silently while they resumed work, or at best talk about whatever they'd been working on that morning. The potluck was a good idea in theory but didn't really help make things fun in that environment.

If someone starts on the job and is a total flop, they don't stick around long. Which everyone's fine with because no one likes working with people who are bad at their job. We have 15-25 people (it varies a bit due to contractors); I joined in March and we've dismissed 3 contractors before the planned end of their contract since then (we'll also hire them outright if they're good enough). Yes, our interview process needs work, and that's a problem. But we don't keep the people who prove to be the wrong person around, and the team (and its morale) is better for that.

Having people who can lead in leadership positions is also crucial. Of the three main roles on my team, two of them have good leaders leading them, and one doesn't. Guess which one has the lowest morale and the most people talking about leaving? They've stuck around because they like the people on the team (fun atmosphere), and because there's been progress on addressing the leadership problem.

This may be more difficult with an existing environment and recent layoffs, but if the atmosphere can be made more friendly, open, and conversational, then I suspect you'll have progress over time, and happier and less-likely-to-leave employees as well.

tl;dr: Management should talk casually with employees, which will make employees comfortable talking casually with each other. Employees being comfortable with each other will start hanging out and eating together more, and over time come up with traditions and organize team events, which will complement any management-organized events, and may well be more in line with employee interests. Employees enjoying spending time to each other and organizing events with each other, then, will both improve morale and make the environment fun.[/SPOILER]

 

[Kozmos]

Always remember that your boss is not your superior. Your boss is your customer.

Thank god customers are extremely wise and discriminating then. Middle management, upper management, they all ignore solid advice and best practices because they don't really give a damn what the technical people recommend. Then they fly in some marketing bozo who contradicts himself at every possible turn and take his advice as gold. Public sector, private sector, it's all the same garbage. It has gotten so bad that mere competence is looked upon as genius. Just thinking about it makes my blood pressure spike and I want to drown a suit.

EDIT: I am serious about letting people complain and at least acknowledging it and then shifting the blame to people above you. If you are the ranking boss, don't try and be their friend. This is a toxic relationship in 90% of the cases.

 

[warpus]

That sounds awful. It is nearly impossible to have a pot luck at the office and serve good food.

It's always a big hit in our office. Mind you we have a lot of people in our office who love to cook and bake and nobody with any allergies.

Are you saying this because a lot of people in your office have allergies? Or don't eat meat? Or are horrible cooks?

My favourite was when we were focusing on a different part of the world each pot luck. For the South American pot luck I made Peruvian food. So I had to research recipes, figure out ingredients, etc. Learned a lot and made a unique dish, then when I went to work I got to try all the other unique dishes that other people made. It was a lot of fun and very tasty.

 

[tetley]

Some customers are just not worth having. Sometimes turning away business is in fact good business.

 

[Quintillus]

For all that I wrote about how to Make Your Office Great Again, I forgot to mention one important thing.

Work-life balance

And it's not just having reasonable work hours, though that's a lot of it. It's also things like respecting vacation - if you can't figure something out without the person who's on the beach or in Paris, then your company has a problem. Vacations should be vacations. I'm off for Christmas now, and my work computer is in the office. I also know that no one is trying to reach me for work-related purposes, which is relaxing.

Also, if you have to have someone on-call, and they're getting a lot of on-call calls, investigate why and have some people work on reducing the causes of that, if they aren't inherent to the job (i.e. call center). No one likes being on call, but it's far better on a team like mine that gets 2 after-hours calls a year than one that gets 4 calls a week.

Work-life balance alone won't make work fun, but not having work-life balance can make an otherwise fun environment not fun pretty easily.

 

[Hygro]

A small table with drugs and liquor on it.

The main one being coffee

 

[The_J]

That sounds awful. It is nearly impossible to have a pot luck at the office and serve good food. Have it catered.

We just recently had one, and it was awesome .

For the OP: People, some freedom, time and a place to socialize. Everything else is frosting on the cake.
If you are with a few people who you like, and you can have lunch with them together somewhere, and you don't get yelled at for doing it sometimes too long, then I think all the basics are done.
My boss can be a dick. But he doesn't control us (we're all busy though, so he doesn't need to), and is agreeable with things if they don't affect things very much. We have time to have chat at the coffee machine, our desks are a total mess, and on some days the whole office comes in after lunch (will for sure get compensated in some way). And that works.
The bosses don't really organize anything for social purposes. That we do ourselves. The potluck was the idea of one of the postdocs (university here). The secretary ordered some additional food and drinks (minor stuff), and that goes from the department budget (so yeah, the bosses need to agree on that).
We have a team at the university sports day each year, we went with a few people on holiday this year, some guys have friday afternoon drinks, etc.
This mainly works because we are lots of people, and everyone has some people who they are friends with, and who they have the time to be friends with. That's it what it needs. If they environment is not hostile, then it should work from there on.

 

[Zelig]

And it's not just having reasonable work hours, though that's a lot of it. It's also things like respecting vacation - if you can't figure something out without the person who's on the beach or in Paris, then your company has a problem.

Not secure to bring non-wiped electronic devices over borders anyway - I wouldn't expect anyone out of country to be contactable unless IT sets up a burner phone/laptop for them. (I would recommend people don't bring personal devices across borders either, unless they're technically-savvy, use strong encryption, and are willing to risk the hassle of refusing to give up passwords.)

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Imo, a serial killer who locked all the doors is fun. Plus, it helps team building.

 

[hobbsyoyo]

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.

This. I've started and deleted several variations of " Igloodude needs a no asshat rule, enforced by firing and replacement " but thought it sounded terrible.

Remote work is situational and personal (not everyone wants to work at home) but where it is easily obtainable, it should be available imo.

I agree with everything else you said as well.

 

[IglooDame]

Thanks for the responses and ideas, everyone. I'll be responding to some posts directly, but there's a few clarifications I'd like to get out:
- the new/shrunk office will be a bit under 20 people. IMHO, the people staying in the new office are nice people, the asshats among us are pretty much all being laid off. And among the tech folks there's already an implicit non-asshat rule (at least in this office, and on my direct-report team globally as well).
- New-company HR appears to not care much one way or the other; they don't step on fun (other than a no-booze-on-premise rule, it's like I'm back in the Navy *sob*) but certainly don't encourage it. They haven't fired me for wearing aloha shirts now and then (mostly Fridays) or for expensing team vists to pistol ranges or other style/morale stuff, and if there was a "what you can have on your desk" rule or level of control I'd just quit immediately. Old company HR helped me keep the fridge stocked with beer, and she swore like a sailor.
-New-company-CEO (who has had the job for years and is a bit micromanagementesque at least on spending) doesn't like telecommuting, but does not appear ready to go down the Yahoo path. I work from home a day or two per week myself, and allow it within my team.

 

[Quintillus]

My company allowed jeans and non-button-up-but-with-collar shirts every day this year following the results of a survey among employees that showed a strong preference for that over a one-time low-three-digit bonus. A few specific areas (mainly those that interact with outside businesspeople) have stricter requirements, but the fairly-flexible-but-not-quite-anything dress code did have a positive impact on morale.

Not secure to bring non-wiped electronic devices over borders anyway - I wouldn't expect anyone out of country to be contactable unless IT sets up a burner phone/laptop for them. (I would recommend people don't bring personal devices across borders either, unless they're technically-savvy, use strong encryption, and are willing to risk the hassle of refusing to give up passwords.)

That (but more generally, risk of theft/lost devices) is why my company's devices all use self-encrypting drives. Might not be enough for traveling to North Korea or if the traveler is on a Most Wanted list, but should cover nearly all other scenarios.