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| Humor at Work |
ISSUE 453 - Sept 5, 2012 |
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Hitting the Reset Button at Work
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If you are having a bad day, it sometimes helps to take a breath and hit the reset button.
That's what AFA JCDecaux did a few years ago with their entire workplace culture. I wrote about this very fun, innovative and caring outdoor advertising company a few months back, after visiting their office in Copenhagen, Denmark. Although they had always been considered a good place to work, they felt they they were getting too complacent. So they hit the reset button in a big way.
To breathe new life into their workplace culture their employees created a new set of four core values: Teamwork; Create Positivity; Spread Humor; Demonstrate Your Fighting Spirit to Grow the Business. To make sure everyone understood what these values truly meant, they focused intensely on a different core value each week, rotating through the four values for six months. Each week, employees and teams were encouraged to demonstrate the "value of the week" in outrageous ways.
The result? After only six months the employees said it was an entirely new place to work. And after a year absenteeism rates plummeted, employee retention rates increased, productivity and sales rose, while happiness and engagement levels skyrocketed!
All because they hit the reset button and became intentional about building a better workplace.
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Mike's Fun at Work Tip |
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Speaking of hitting the reset button, the first hour of the day at work can set your attitude barometer for the rest of the day, so it's important to start on the right note. Too many people don't leave enough time in the mornings to get themselves centered before diving headlong into their day. Creating a ritual around how you start your workday can not only help you achieve more, it can lower your stress and help you look forward to the start of the day. (Check out the Forbes articles mentioned in the sidebar for more thoughts on how to start and end your workday.)
As a big fan of traditions and rituals at work, here are a few traditions you may want to launch in your workplace to help you and your team jump start the day in a fun way:
- give everyone a standing ovation as they arrive at work
- announce your arrival into the office with a giant gong
- announce the "deep thought of the day" over the P.A. system
- leave a fun or inspiring voice mail message on everyone's voice mail
so that's the first thing they hear when they start their work day
- start a contest with another employee to see who is the first one to
say "good morning" to the other one every day for a month
- have everyone announce how they are doing on a scale of 1-10
- hold an "8 minutes at 8:00" team huddle or "9 at 9" meeting where everyone checks in and talks about their 3 big goals for the day. The key is to keep these short (no chairs, and yes, use a stopwatch) and fun in tone. Use it as a chance for people to connect, get energized and communicate any pressing items to the team.
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Quote of the Week |
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"The
time to laugh is when you don't have time for it." Argus Poster
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It's a Wacky World |
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In honor of "Be Late For Something Day!" (don't worry, tomorrow is "Fight Procrastination Day," so it will all even out in the wash) here are some rather weak excuses as to why employees showed up late at work, as featured on a CNN report:
- the Starbucks line was too long
- someone stole all my daffodils
- I had to audition for American Idol
- I had to get my gun back from the police
- I got lost in the fog rowing across the river
Perhaps that explains why, in a survey, some 27% of managers said they are skeptical about late excuses at work (of course, being late with your excuse is a whole other topic).
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Inspiring Savings
Cost-savings to bring Mike in to speak:
October 1st in PEI; December 5-7 in Winnipeg;
April, 2013 in
South Africa.
Inspiring Reading
Humor at Work TV
From the archives, in case you were late seeing it the first time (I'm not sure how that's possible, but you can't be too careful about these things), here are a few time management tips from Hugh Culver, the author of Give Me a Break
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Follow Humor at Work
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Copyright © 2012 Humor at Work. All Rights Reserved.
mike@mikekerr.com
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