{"id":52909,"date":"2025-07-10T02:01:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:01:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52909\/"},"modified":"2025-07-10T02:01:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-10T02:01:10","slug":"how-to-make-work-more-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/52909\/","title":{"rendered":"How to make work more fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

This article is an on-site version of our Working It newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here<\/a> to get the newsletter delivered every Wednesday. Explore all of our newsletters here<\/a><\/p>\n

Hello and welcome to Working It. I\u2019m Bethan Staton, the FT\u2019s deputy work and careers editor, standing in for Isabel this week.\u00a0<\/p>\n

We are well and truly entering holiday season in the UK. I\u2019m going to a tiny festival in Wales this weekend but will be spending most of the next few months working. Don\u2019t pity me, though. London is the best when it\u2019s warm, and being in the office will mean making headway with some important projects and working hard \u2014 while also making space for the summer spirit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But do we really need to wait for the summer to have fun at work? I don\u2019t think so, and for this week\u2019s newsletter I\u2019ve been thinking about how to make our day-to-day more enjoyable. Read on for more \u2014 and if you have any recommendations about how to inject some delight into the 9 to 5 get in touch at bethan.staton@ft.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

When is work not work?\u00a0<\/p>\n

When did you last clock off at the end of the working day and think, that was fun?\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not a trick question. Workplace fun is becoming a buzzword, alongside its relatives engagement, bring-your-whole-self and employee experience. I often read about it as a means to increase productivity or attract staff. But what if fun was central to how workplaces operated, not in service of another goal, but as an end in itself?<\/p>\n

This seems less silly if we think creatively about what fun means \u2014 and it can mean a lot of things. I\u2019ve never really been a fan of ping pong or zany away days, but I do think that work can and should be fun. That\u2019s easy in journalism (what\u2019s more fun than finding things out and writing about them!) but I speak to people in all sorts of professions \u2014 nurses and software engineers, accountants and restaurant workers \u2014 who genuinely enjoy their jobs and would agree that work is often fun.<\/p>\n

Another person who agrees with this is Bree Groff, whose upcoming book Today Was Fun gets serious about workplace joy. When I spoke to her last week she described stuff like foosball and happy hours as \u201cfun icing\u201d \u2014 great to have but an addition to actual \u201ccake of work\u201d. <\/p>\n

The cake is the important stuff: what you do all day, outputs, your team and how you interact with them. You can put a delicious icing on a bad cake, but it\u2019s still going to taste bad (or people will lick off the icing) so it\u2019s this core part of work that needs to be fun.<\/p>\n

Groff doesn\u2019t think this should be difficult. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing fundamentally painful about creating value,\u201d she says. It involves using our skills, building stuff, learning and getting feedback \u2014 all stuff that \u201cshould be enjoyable\u201d. What stops work being fun are the artifices, formalities and pressures we unnecessarily bring to it. \u201cThere\u2019s this notion that you have to show up in a certain way,\u201d she tells me. \u201cYou wear your blazer, you use the jargon, you make your presentations look very respectable \u2014 but what that does is mute our vibrancy as creative beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

Returning some of that vibrancy, creating an environment in which we can enjoy ourselves, is Groff\u2019s mission. She suggests leaders can do this by making fun of themselves; dressing more casually, or joking with the team. Presenting a rough sketch in a meeting rather than, say, getting the design department to pretty it up, shows a team that \u201cthey can be human here\u201d. To put it most simply, Groff poses one very simple question: \u201cAre you a good hang at work? Are you having fun?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

I\u2019m instinctively cautious of these kind of approaches, wondering if they\u2019re still the icing of work, not the cake. Often we\u2019re not having fun at work because we\u2019re poorly paid, in hierarchies that deny us autonomy and punishing conditions, serving ends we don\u2019t agree with. <\/p>\n

But I also think there\u2019s something important about putting joy at the centre of our working lives. Groff, a former physics teacher, defines work as \u201cforce x distance\u201d \u2014 another way of saying \u201ceffort that makes a difference\u201d. Good work should make a positive difference, but should also involve effort that is enjoyable, rewarding and well supported. And if we\u2019re not having a good time, what\u2019s the point? <\/p>\n

Groff suggests a thought experiment: \u201cYou have a successful business with a good bottom line, and everyone\u2019s miserable. I wouldn\u2019t call that a good business. I don\u2019t know if that business should exist.\u201d If we are really to bring fun to work, she suggests what\u2019s needed is nothing short of a \u201cparadigm shift\u201d. We can move from a situation where \u201cwe\u2019re just extracting from each other\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009To one where the employee is happy to be delivering value.\u201d <\/p>\n

Five top stories from the world of work <\/p>\n

    \n
  1. \n

    Why driverless vehicles just can\u2019t quit humans:<\/strong><\/a> AI anxiety seems to be accelerating, but progress in actually phasing out people is unfolding in a less linear fashion, as this piece smartly explains.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  2. \n

    Networking hots up in the yoga studio:<\/strong><\/a> Forget Padel, there\u2019s a new type-A networking activity in town. This time its more about mindful stretching, but with the temperature turned up you can still work up a sweat.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  3. \n

    Can Paris\u2019 banking elite withstand a New York onslaught?<\/strong><\/a> France\u2019s rural areas are grappling with a shortage of farmers, Paris has an overpopulation of bankers. The vicious consequent competition is far from droll. <\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  4. \n

    On-the-job learning upended by AI and hybrid work:<\/strong><\/a> One of the most worrying aspects of the march of AI is its effect on early career workers and the development of expertise \u2014 an area that is already being affected by remote working, poor management and cuts.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n

  5. \n

    Music investor Merck Mercuriadis plots comeback with Hipgnosis remix:<\/strong><\/a> Our leadership interview this week is with the controversial and tenacious founder of Hipgnosis, who is planning a new investment group that could transform the business of music afresh.<\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    One more thing\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009<\/p>\n

    Allegations about the circumstances<\/a> surrounding the memoir The Salt Path have been one of the hottest topics of conversation in the newsroom this week. The accusations of misrepresentation come just after the reappearance of one of recent memory\u2019s most high-profile literary fibbers: James Frey, who was shamed by Oprah after it emerged parts of his memoir, A Million Little Pieces, had been fabricated. Frey\u2019s new novel has received some terrible reviews<\/a>, but I\u2019ve enjoyed revisiting the story of his rise to fame<\/a>, then descent into notoriety, in the light of the Salt Path. <\/p>\n

    Recommended newsletters<\/p>\n

    One Must-Read <\/strong>\u2014 Remarkable journalism you won\u2019t want to miss. Sign up here<\/a><\/p>\n

    Sort Your Financial Life Out<\/strong> \u2014 Learn how to make smarter money decisions and supercharge your personal finances with Claer Barrett. Sign up here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This article is an on-site version of our Working It newsletter. Subscribers can sign up here to get…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":52910,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[64,420,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-52909","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jobs","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-jobs","10":"tag-united-states","11":"tag-unitedstates","12":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114826476482764186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52909","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52909"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52909\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52910"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52909"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52909"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52909"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}