I'm seriously back-logged at work after a day out water skiing, a night out camping and a night out for the summer ball...all company events. Got to spend lots of time out soaking up the glorious English summer, and to reflect on corporate fun events and how they work.
- Conclusions first. My top management tip. Spend the money, create the time, and make sure your team does lots of fun stuff together. The return you get in terms of morale and productivity (less time wasted on whingeing/ managing the whinge) is huge
- The cricketing parallel...more games are won in the dressing room than on the field
- Things I remember doing on Fun Days include, in no particular order: water-skiing, white water rafting, yatching, steering a canal boat, camping, ultimate frizbee, fishing, mini-golf, tennis ball cricket, baseball hitting in batting cages, softball, bowling, skiing, laser tag, rock climbing, a ropes course, hiking up Snowdon (the highest peak in Britain), hiking up Scafell Pike (the highest peak in England), quad bike racing, go karting, a treasure hunt through the "heart of rural England", archery, ice-skating, clay pigeon shooting, visiting an aquarium, visiting ESPN Zone, visiting an amusement park with many roller coaster rides, and wine tasting
- This does not include Community Days, which might involve riding a bicycle 75 miles across the Pennines, building a house for Habitat for Humanity, or painting the hall of an inner city school
- Fun Days are fun despite being hopelessly bad at the fun activity. This is less obvious than it sounds. Games I play regularly, like squash, are fun when I'm playing well and no fun when I'm playing badly
- The Fun Day is mainly about being out with the blokes from work, and not talking work. The activity is just time structuring
- The hardest thing about fun days is being inclusive. The activities I've listed above reflect the culture of the teams I work in...mainly quant jocks in their 20s. The teams are very diverse in terms of ethnicity/ race/ nationality, but are very homogeneous in attitudes/ interests/ mind-set. I remember a gentle, soft spoken girl who decided to make herself unavailable for white water rafting because she couldn't quite picture herself in a wet suit. That didn't feel right
- Twenty20 cricket games don't qualify as official Fun Days, because they are not inclusive enough
- It's impossible to be completely inclusive. Our most feminine fun events are probably the Summer and Winter Balls. These tend to involve nice clothes, stately homes, fine food and wine, live entertainers or fireworks, karaoke, an open bar and disco dancing. A shaven-headed Australian Vice President in his mid-forties consistently boycotts these evenings, since he "doesn't want to watch 23 year olds getting wasted and throwing up in the toilets". In case you're wondering, I've never seen or even heard of anyone throwing up in toilets at company events
- Fun Days have no impact on the number/ quality of people who apply for jobs at this company. Potential recruits, especially graduates, care a lot more about pay, prestige and career prospects than fun or culture
- Fun Days, and the broader culture that they are a part of, are great for retention. Culture is a big part of what people like about their jobs here. It is a key reason why people who leave want to (and often do) come back. People leaving and coming back...and the incentive that creates to leave on a whim...is a topic for another post
- The disconnect between the selection effect and the retention effect is quite an interesting puzzle, really. When asked, graduates say they want "serious" jobs. Join us because we do cool Fun Days sounds condescending. That apart, there are at least three other interesting economic effects going on here:
(i) Competition. Other employers competing for the same talent also do Fun Days
(ii) Asymmetric information. Everybody says their company is fun. But is it? Really? An extra $5000 is real for sure
(iii) Consumer choice theory. People are really bad at forecasting what they enjoy/ care about/ derive utility from. They overestimate the utility of obscure features while evaluating digital cameras. Similarly, they underestimate the utility derived from fun or culture in evaluating potential employers.
2 comments:
Did any of the Funday people read this Desmondmorrism of their behavior, e.g., the faint-hearted (I think you used another term) who wouldn't do the water activities involving wet-suits and such?
I never said she was faint hearted. She was traditionally built. She probably still has a powerful heart
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