Check out These Company Perks to Perk up Your Days
March 05, 2009 (3:30PM) by Brianna Raymond, CPRW
My favorite perk about this job? Free Lunch Fridays. My second favorite perk? Parties. The Pongo staff gets along so well that we willingly hang out together during non-work hours. Really, we do. Call us crazy.
 But aside from having a good time, I shouldn't have to tell you that your job can actually benefit from such fun. You probably don't even notice it because it's so subtle, but enjoying a friendly relationship with your colleagues can increase morale and decrease stress during work hours. But if you can't spare time in your personal life to hang out with people you spend 40 hours a week with already, here's an example of the kind of fun that can be had during work hours:
We're a smallish company with employees who mostly (yes, mostly) share the same warped sense of humor and who actually enjoy each other's company. Free Lunch Fridays gives us a chance to gather in a conference room to chow down on grub the company pays for, and talk about anything that comes to mind.
It's a chance to mentally escape from work for an hour. Conversation topics can grow wildly out of control, and due to our sometimes (hah!) warped senses of humor, most topics tend to plummet right into the toilet (Poop jokes anyone?). It's not unusual to see a colleague or two blotting their eyes after laughing so hard they cried.
I've also heard of other companies hosting events that cut into regular work hours (more so than a typical lunch break), which can be a little risky, for one reason or another. Things like chili cook-offs or Rock Band & Margaritas starting at 3 pm. Oh, and while the booze-at-work thing might sound appealing, it's probably a legal minefield. (e.g., Do you get worker's comp when the lampshade falls off your head and breaks your toe?)
Not every workplace can pull off a successful mix of professional and social interaction. Get the wrong crowd together and it's a recipe for disaster. There's nothing worse than putting a bunch of people in a room together to "have fun" when they don't like or know each other all that well to begin with.
Anyway, what I'm getting at is that when you have fun with your coworkers, you have a different perspective on your job. I mean, there's a reason Google gets 777,000 job applications a year. They're doing something right (or at least, branding themselves as THE fun place to work). Wouldn't it be nice to look forward to going to work every day, even if you don't like your job that much? If the employees are happy, then management is happy, too. Unless they don't enjoy good-hearted poop jokes...
What about your company? Do they do anything fun to keep employee morale high? And does it work?
Biggest Perk for ME is to simply have long-lasting employment...Then again, diving into the Cold Waters of Entreneurship has a certain eerie appeal as well...Go Figure!
At my old company, I was the youngest (24) when I started working there. Not only did I have great co-workers who loved the idea, but our management was also part of the "fun" crowd.
I planned after-work gatherings once every 3 months or so at a local bar, usually on a Thursday night. We had some great times and each time we went out, different co-workers would show up, depending on whose schedule fit that day. There was usually a group of 10 of us and we'd bring our significant others and share a bunch of laughs!
I think it brought us closer in the office, overall.
Our dept. also celebrated birthdays, which meant there was plenty of CAKE to go around.
Our super large company (who was pretty stingy and boring) actually held a Halloween parade and a group of us from our dept. went as the old iPod commercial. We dressed in black and each had our iPods on while carrying a small radio to play the music. Did I mention we also taped fluorescent paper to our backs (to simulate the background of the commercial in bright colors!)
I will always miss that creative bunch (We were the advertising dept.)!!!
@eResumes: That's a fantastic perk nowadays, and one I'm sure many can relate to.
@Kathryn: Sounds like a great place to work, and I'm jealous of all the cake (though I am known to bring baked treats in for everyone on occasion...maybe that's why they like me? Hah.) Every office needs someone like you to inject some fun into boring gray cube walls! Nice job!
I've worked in both types of places - the place that has fun and lots of employee participation in that fun, and places that have no fun. In some cases those types of places tried, but the fun seemed to be forced down our throats. It always seemed forced and just didn't work, kind of like an arranged marriage.
But when you get a staff where people like to hang out with each other outside of work and everyone is happy for the most part, it really is something special. It's like that one season where your team just clicks and everything goes right and you go all the way and win a championship. You may never get that again in your career, but for that one season it was something very special.
I had that once and it lasted for five years. I may never have it again, but I can always look back on that experience as something that was rare and, like that perfect season, really kind of magical. What a great time that was, and not only did we have fun and were bonded tightly, we also had our best years of productivity.
Since then I have worked at places who tried to be fun but just weren't. They always talked about fun but there was none. Their poop jokes weren't even funny. How can a poop joke not be funny? I didn't think it was possible but yeah, it is. Sad, I know.
Question for you then...if you work at a smallish company, when you have your "free lunch Fridays", how do people feel about those that don't participate? I'm sure you have an employee or two that doesn't include themselves around that conference room table on Fridays. I'm sure for one reason or another you have a few that don't show for those types of things.
@M. Billwater: All those people who don't partcipate in Free Lunch Fridays? We hate them. They're terrible people. And if they ever try to join, we ask them to leave immediately.
If you didn't pick up on the sarcasm just then, know that I'm 110% kidding. It's a completely voluntary thing and we don't think any less of those that don't join.
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