EP. 63 How Hybrid Leaders Make Teamwork Fun

Team Anywhere Leadership Podcast

The difference between a good company and a great company.... is fun. Fun is the number one factor between the companies that made the 100 Best Companies to Work For list and those that didn’t. In the companies that made the list, 82% of the employees said that they have fun at work. Alternately, that number was closer to 60% for those companies that didn’t quite make the cut.

Today on the podcast, we have Dr. Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo, authors of Work Made Fun Gets Done. Dr. Nelson and Mario Tamayo share tips for how to make your team and your organization less dull and more engaging. To lead a vibrant hybrid or virtual organization, one of the best things you can do is find out what your team members need for their own work to be fun.

Why Fun at Work Matters
Even if we do our best to avoid it, today we are constantly bombarded with negative news. As a leader, it’s your responsibility to combat the negativity that your employees are facing. Many leaders higher up in the organization can have the misperception that fun is a waste of time and money, and is an impediment to business outcomes. But these leaders are highly mistaken.

Especially since the pandemic, our work lives and home lives have never been so intertwined before. The leaders that deeply understand how their employees are balancing work and home life, also understand the value that fun plays in establishing the right mood for work. Leaders today need to understand that with this new hybrid work, it doesn’t matter where employees are located. Rather, what matters is incorporating fun into the work process from where you are.

Dr. Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo recommend that leaders and team members bring the proper data to their executives to discuss the results of having more fun at work. They explain that it’s important to speak the language of your executives and discuss the impact fun has on recruitment, retention, healthcare, and cost savings.

Recent research conducted by Dr. Nelson included looking at whether the work location of employees mattered in relation to their levels of work pride and organizational pride. (See https://workproud.com) The results proved that there was no significant difference between where people worked and their level of work and organizational pride. This supported the notion that you don’t have to “go into the office” to get the company culture. In fact, the data showed that remote employees actually had slightly more pride than those who worked in the office. This could be in part because their organization trusts them to have the flexibility to manage work within the context of their own life.

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