Humor in the Workplace (Essay Sample)

HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction...............................................................................................................................3
Benefits of humor in the workplace...........................................................................................3
How humor can be incorporated into the workplace.................................................................7
Guidelines to humor in the workplace and the related obstacles to its adoption......................8
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................9
References................................................................................................................................10
Introduction
It is always said that laughter is considered the best medicine. It is, therefore, important to consider humor and laughter in any organization from the top most directors to the subordinate staff as it provides them with many benefits CITATION Mon12 \l 2057 (Monica, 2012). In general, humor is important as it creates a favorable working environment for all employees within the organization and ensures that they remain motivated in their daily activities. The report aims to identify and discuss the benefits that are involved in the nurturing of humour in the workplace, how humour can be incorporated in the workplace and guidelines that can be used to recognize and incorporate humour into the workplace. Change is inevitable in any society. Julia and Hope, (2004) argued that change is the only constant thing in any organizational operations. In fact, change is credited with most of the improvement witness in the world. Humor has been identified to a bridge through which organizational changes can be achieved CITATION Jul04 \l 2057 (Julia & Hope, 2004).
Benefits of humor in the workplace
Much improvement noticed in different fields and areas in the world result from embracing change and innovation. Certain measures can be applied internally to have a great impact on the competitive nature of the firm in its market. Reducing expenses would lead to more funds left aside to be used in other viable projects or in other departments in the company that could have a positive impact on the competitive edge of the Corporation CITATION Bas01 \p 1-2 \l 2057 (Kathi, Fredrick, & Peter, 2001, pp. 1-2). Some of these achievements to change and innovation in an organization can be achieved through the promotion of humor in the organization. The benefits that are derived from encouraging humor in the workplace are numerous but can be grouped into six major groups. These groups include communication, relationship building, productivity, problem-solving, leadership and health. On an individual level in the workplace, humor has also been identified to promote creativity and creative problem solving and stress reduction CITATION Rob132 \l 2057 (Robert & Carl, 2013).
Humor has been identified to promote effective communication within an organization. Among the benefits of humor identified by scholars in promoting communication are the facts that it increases persuasion and aids in learning. Humor in communication also gets people to listen to the speaker; it increases the long-term memory retention and increases the likeability of the speaker to the listeners CITATION Cho \l 2057 (Chockalingam, David, & Jessica, 2012). Humor provides persuasion to the listeners where the people are likely to be in disagreement. Some messages are likely to create a mixed reaction among the listeners and humor can be used in such instances to distract them before they create counter arguments to the message. Humor helps in learning as it has been identified to reduce anxiety among the learners, therefore, creating a more positive and conducive learning atmosphere while facilitates the learning process. Humor provides a way forward for individuals to resolve their issues in stressful conditions. A speaker who consistently appropriately makes use of humor in the messages that they pass across will most likely make people wants to listen to the message being passed across CITATION Jer11 \l 2057 (Jerald, 2011). The speaker who appropriately uses humor is also likely to develop a favored attitude from the listeners. Finally, humor has been discovered to promote communication through increasing of long memory retention of listeners. Humor increases the concentration of the listeners, therefore, enhancing the students’ capability to process the message being passed across resulting in better learning (Christopher & James, 2012).
Humour has also been identified to promote productivity in the workplace. It improves motivation, employee engagement within the organization, reduces absenteeism of the staff from work and reduces long-term burnout. Humour creates motivation among the workers and provides a working environment that promotes proper organizational culture. This also improves the morale of the employees thus making them more productive in their routine activities (Christopher, Timothy, & Joyce, 2015). Similarly, light-hearted managers usually encourage the employees to be actively engaged in their routine activities for the overall success of the organization to be achieved. Humour has also been identified to improve on employees’ performance as the employees remain joyful in their activities as well as being satisfied. Humour also creates cohesion among the employees which helps them to decrease stress thus reducing the probability of absenteeism of the employees for no proper reason. Finally, since humor has been shown to reduce instances of absenteeism and increase the loyalty of the employees to the organization, it also helps to prevent employee burnout thus increasing the productivity of each employee CITATION Tha13 \l 2057 (Jessica & Jason, 2013).
In the workplace, it is important to create strong relationships among the members for better performance to be achieved through the better interaction of employees. Humor is a vital ingredient in developing strong relationships in the workplace as it ensures that builds strong relationships among the employees. Among the benefits of humor in building strong relationships are that it diffuses conflict, reduces status differentials, builds trust, connects with others and encourages people to work together CITATION Sal14 \p 418 \l 2057 (Salvatoore, 2014, p. 418). Humor provides individuals with a means through which they can facilitate their conversations as well as bridge their personal differences. Humor is usually used even in the international levels to create and establish peace in international mediation. Humor also builds trust among the employees as it is used to improve on the cohesiveness of the individuals as well as reducing the status differences. It provides the employees with an opportunity to build trust in team building among the different groups in an organization. In most organizations, there exists a gap between the managers and the employees. Humor can be used in such cases to bridge the social gap that exists between the two groups thus reducing the status differences that will allow for better organizational performance. Ultimately, humor connects people together and encourages them to work together as a unit for the greater goal of achieving a target objective. The response to humor by most individuals is that is automatically allows them to connect and interact socially. This helps to promote mutual investment among the employees for them to achieve the target that they have set CITATION Dav14 \l 2057 (David & Lu, 2014).
Among the benefits that have been identified when it comes to leadership includes the fact that it develops skills, creates opportunities, increases organizational profits and builds credible and competent individuals in the organization. The people in the workplace who use humor especially in the stressful situations are likely to be more in control of things and situations in the organization CITATION Rod10 \p 367 \l 2057 (Rod, 2010, p. 367). Further research has identified that humor also creates more opportunities for development in the workplace. The staff that displays humor in the workplace are more likely to be given get more opportunities for growth and development of skills within the organization. Organizations that have developed successful humor programs and opportunities are usually linked with successful leadership. Encouraging humor creates a healthy relationship among all the member staff in the organization thus improving the performance and output that they provide. Better working performance increases the profits and compliance in the organization that in turn leads to the development of successful business culture. Humour also improves problem-solving as it reduces the stresses in the workplace that the staff has due to the role conflict in the workplace CITATION Ste141 \l 2057 (Steffen & Hege, 2014).
On the issue of health, it is true that a healthy workforce will be more productive thus ensuring that the organization objectively achieves its targets. Studies have shown that humor and laughter can increase the relative blood flow of individuals in the organization. Humour and laughter also strengthen the immune system of individuals in the organization. A jovial individual is usually healthy as they ensure that they block the production of stress bodily hormones such as cortisol. Other important benefits of humor and laughter health wise include the burning of calories, relaxation of muscles and also increase happiness CITATION Had13 \l 2057 (Hadi, Rozeyta, & Norhani, 2013).
How humor can be incorporated into the workplace
Research on th...