Episode 192: Finding Humor in the Workplace
| By Jessica Miller-Merrell | Podcast
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On today’s podcast, I’d like to talk about the importance of humor and fun in the workplace in order to improve productivity, innovation, and creativity. We can train our management staff on leadership, coaching, and HR compliance, but when it comes to motivating our workforce, we might be missing out on the opportunity to find humor in the workplace.
This podcast is sponsored by ClearCompany.
Episode 192: Finding Humor in the Workplace with Julie Ann Sullivan
I’m joined today by Julie Ann Sullivan, speaker, workshop leader, podcaster, culture consultant and author of Blueprint for Employee Engagement, 37 Essential Elements to Influence, Innovate and Inspire. Her latest book, Catalysts of Culture – How Visionary Leaders Activate the Employee Experience, is based on her research, experience, and interviews on her podcast, Businesses that Care.
Finding Fun and Humor in the Workplace
Julie Ann is a certified laughter leader or trainer. Having never heard of this, and I loved that Julie Ann does this. Given all the crazy going on in this world and the increased divisiveness, humor is a great way to unite and build relationships with employees. Julie Ann shares that research shows you can actually teach people how to be more optimistic. Optimism is a skill that employees and people can be able to learn. She says while you can’t make anybody learn anything. They have to want to learn.
Humor as a Path to Creativity and Innovation
Julie talks about how humor loosens up the team and helps to get the creative juices flowing. All businesses are looking to improve in the area of creativity, new ideas, and different processes that can drive performance and increase revenues not to mention make a company culture more interesting and fun. We’ve talked about creativity as being a muscle that needs to be flexed in previous podcast episodes. Having a focus on humor is a great way to encourage creative efforts in a different way. Julie Ann says that we need to remind ourselves that these type of culture changes are a marathon and not a sprint. Even adding something as simple as humor to your organization takes time.
Humor, creativity, #engagement is all related. Our lives aren't really cut up into little sections. They all bleed into one another and make us the human that we are. - @JASatLNE #workplace #hr #shrm Click To Tweet
Conclusion
This has been a fascinating discussion and I think we’ve learned a lot about leadership and humor, as well as its impact on employee engagement and creativity at work. I’m so pleased to have had the opportunity to learn from Julie Ann and her extensive experience working with companies on maintaining a culture of employee engagement.
Connect with Julie Ann Sulivan
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
- Julie Ann Sullivan
- Blueprint for Employee Engagement, 37 Essential Elements to Influence, Innovate and Inspire
- Catalysts of Culture – How Visionary Leaders Activate the Employee Experience
- Julie’s podcast, Businesses that Care.
- Workology Podcast Episode 172: Fostering a Culture of Creativity at Work with Christiane Michaelis
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