I’ve talked about having fun at work several times in the last year, and various Baudville bloggers have posted fun at work tips and ideas.

But you don’t have to take just our word for the value of having fun at work. A Forbes.com article claims there is a “definite correlation between happiness and productivity on the job.” Apparently, a happy worker is also a more productive worker.

It makes sense. If you like what you’re working on, you’re more likely to approach your work with passion, enthusiasm and drive as opposed to procrastinating and pushing tasks to the bottom of your to-do list.

Here are a few encouraging stats about happy workers from Forbes:

- Happy workers reported spending 80% of their week on work related tasks, while less happy workers spent only 40% of their time on work related tasks.
- The happiest employees take 66% less sick leave.
- Happy people are good for teams and can boost the mood of colleagues.
- Being happy at work can lead to higher income and higher quality of work.

Read the entire Forbes article on being happy at work, and then get a group of fun and creative employees together to discuss how you can make work more fun and employees happier. It can be as simple as empowering a few people in each department to organize occasional low-cost events.

Our department threw an impromptu bean bag tournament one Friday afternoon. We set up the games in between our desks, and let the bean bags fly. Employees brought in their personal game sets, so the only cost to the company was a small prize for the tourney champion. We had so much fun, we were still talking about the tournament on Monday.

We’ve also staged our own minute-to-win-it competitions for meetings and events. We have a resident Face the Cookie pro, do you? NBC has a complete Minute to Win It game library, so you can get all the details for a multitude of games that you can easily host in your office.

We’re always looking for new, fun activities to do at work. Share your ideas for having fun at work with us here!

Action shots from our Face the Cookie Challenge and Bean Bag Tournament.

---------------------- 

Cori is Baudville's in-house Recognitionista (she's officially a Certified Recognition Professional, too)  and a member of the Millennial generation. Get her employee recognition tips and special discounts by liking Baudville on Facebook.