Embracing Joy in the Workplace is the Key to Success
Embracing joy in the workplace is a powerful but often overlooked way of running a better business. Creating connection, breaking free from toxic positivity and hustle culture and making space for play are all ways you can bring this to your organisation to improve both your employee wellbeing and your bottom line.
Burnout, redundancy, toxic hustle culture, quiet quitting, the loneliness epidemic: these aren’t just buzzwords, but are the reality of the challenges being faced in today’s workplace.
In a period of uncertainty and transition, more and more of us are feeling overwhelmed, fatigued and more anxious about the security of our work and workplaces than ever before. As a result, our wellbeing starts to decrease, as does the quality of our work – because when we’re not feeling our best, we can’t do our best either. We’ve all heard the saying that you can’t pour from an empty cup; for a lot of people, their cup is almost bone dry.
But there is an answer, a way to better navigate these challenges, better support people’s wellbeing, and support the strength and success of our companies at the same time. The answer is one that is often overlooked: embracing joy in the workplace.
Why is embracing joy in the workplace so important?
Put simply: because it helps people and profit. Studies show that the key to flourishing in the workplace is happiness. As Dr Laurie Santos explains: “Our minds narrow in when we're not feeling good, and the data suggests that if we're not feeling good at work, our minds are going to narrow in in ways that might negatively affect our performance, and that finding a path to positive emotion might be one of the best ways to increase our productivity at work.” [1]
Put another way – one that’s sure to capture the C-Suite’s attention – happiness in the workplace affects a company's profits. A 2023 study by Oxford University and Indeed reviewed over a thousand different companies across a range of industries, and found a direct correlation between the companies with the happiest workers, and those that are making the most money! [2]
Why do we focus on workplace joy, not workplace happiness?
At this point, you might be wondering why this isn’t a piece about workplace happiness. And that’s because joy reaches even deeper than happiness does. Happiness is reactionary, a fleeting emotion sparked by a particular moment or event that brings a sense of excitement or exhilaration. Joy, on the other hand, is a wider, longer-lasting state of being. We are capable of cultivating and experiencing joy even in the face of challenge or adversity, and that’s why we focus on Joy at Recess Living.
Positive psychologist Barbara Fredrickson draws on this in her Broaden and Build theory, which explains how joy, positivity, and doing things that make us feel good lead us to more success. We can access more of our cognitive functioning when we’re in a positive state, thanks to an increased flow of blood to our brains, which in turn allows us to make better decisions, be more creative, expand our thoughts, and our actions. This enables us to build and develop new skills, cultivate and deepen new connections, strengthen our personal growth, increase our resilience and create even more positive emotions.
Contrast this with when we’re in a negative state: our automatic fight or flight state pushes the blood away from our brain and into our arms and legs, in a primal response that’s preparing us to run. Our cognition is impaired, our capacity reduced – and therefore, we are narrowing, rather than broadening, our thinking.
How to embrace joy in the workplace
Here are three ways you can embrace joy in the workplace, to aid your employees’ and your organisation’s success:
Create connection
As humans, we’re hardwired for connection. 70% of our happiness comes down to the quality of our relationships, according to Dr David Niven, and at work this is no different! Gallup data indicate that having a best friend at work is strongly linked to business outcomes, including profitability, safety, inventory control and retention. [3]
This was reflected in the Indeed study above, too: participants who had a best friend at work were more likely to say they belonged, and that the stuff they did there mattered. “This all surprises the economists, but it made total sense to someone who studies the science of happiness, because we've seen for years that social connection and our social relationships are one of the most important things that matter for our wellbeing,” Dr Laurie Santos explains.
How can you make this happen? We’re not suggesting you start pairing people together and forcing them to buddy up – we don’t think we need to tell you that this approach won’t work. Instead, you can foster a sense of community in your workplace by scheduling regular gatherings.
Team bonding events create the opportunity for your employees to connect in a deeper, more meaningful way – whether they’re creative workshops, walk ‘n’ talk sessions, joy rumbles, or something else besides.
Break free from toxic productivity and hustle culture
More business buzzwords – but again, business buzzwords that have very real implications. In an ever-changing world the traditional ways of working are no longer serving us, instead leading to more stress, burnout, and low productivity. It's time to lean into alternative ways of working, which prioritise rest and wellbeing.
Flexible working hours
Working hours are no longer a one-size-fits-all approach – where can you incorporate flexibility in your workplace? Could you have core operating hours where your team are all online, and outside of that team members can choose when to work their other hours?
Alternatively, you could consider a 4 day working week. The recent four-day work week study in the UK was found to be a ‘resounding success’, with 92% of the companies who signed up for it continuing after the study concluded. According to Autonomy, some of the most extensive benefits of shorter working hours were found in employees’ well-being: 39% of employees were less stressed, 71% had reduced levels of burnout at the end of the trial, and 54% found their work-life balance improved too. [4]
Of course, there is no one-size-fits-all method to suit every organisation in every industry, but the four day work week doesn’t have to be a classic ‘Friday off’ policy because it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution; models that have found success include ‘staggered’, ‘decentralised’, ‘annualised’, and ‘conditional’ structures.
Work with your energy
Another way to revamp your time management is to embrace working with your energy, rather than against it.
Utilise systems such as themed days, task stacking, and time blocking to schedule deep work for the times when you’re at your optimum. On the equally important flip side, prioritise rest and schedule breaks into your day to recharge your energy.
And for those who menstruate, tracking your cycle and working with its energetic ebbs and flows can be super helpful. Generally, the follicular phase and ovulation phase at the start of your cycle are when your energy is highest, while the luteal phase that follows is when energy can dip.
Cultivate a culture of slow productivity
Cal Newport (official title: author of Slow Productivity: The Lost Art of Accomplishment Without Burnout; unofficial title: king of Slow Productivity) describes how “The relentless overload that’s wearing us down is generated by a belief that ‘good’ work requires increasing busyness—faster responses to email and chats, more meetings, more tasks, more hours.”
Instead, he advises we do this:
1. Do fewer things.
2. Work at a natural pace.
3. Obsess over quality.
Make space for play
Creative mindfulness – or, as we call it here at Recess Living, meditation for doers – has been proven to have myriad benefits in the workplace. It helps manage stress, anxiety, and burnout, fosters intra- and inter- team bonding and connection, inspires creative thinking and better problem-solving, and boosts morale and job satisfaction (for more, read our blog all about creative play.)
According to author Ali Abdaal, “Psychologists increasingly believe that play holds the key to true productivity, partly because it provides a sense of psychological relief. As one recent study put it: ‘the psychological function of play is to restore the physically and mentally fatigued individual through participation in activity which is pleasurable and relaxing.” [5]
In addition, making space for play can actually facilitate the other two elements of embracing joy in the workplace, too: making space for play allows the opportunity for employees to connect, and being playful evokes the kind of joy that broadens and builds our mind.
In summary, being playful makes us more creative and when we are more creative we create great work.
Next steps for embracing joy in the workplace
The long and the short of it is this: when people feel well, they perform well. A company with a positive culture is a company with thriving employees, thriving relationships, and a thriving bottom line.
If you’re looking for support to deepen the connections in your workplace, we have a range of experiences that are playfully therapeutic and grounded in science. You can book a creative workshop or retreat for your team here.