Using fun for employee motivation

We all know that our employees are supposed to do their jobs because that's what we're paying them for, but it is equally true that some employees need a little extra motivation at times.  For example, a maintenance employee might have a task that he doesn't especially enjoy such as checking the mouse traps located around the exterior walls in the warehouse.  A sanitation manager should be auditing the dated inspection stickers on the traps periodically to make sure the work is being done.  If it's not, the manager might call the employee on the carpet, which isn't terribly motivating, or he might use a fun technique to encourage the employee to do his job.  For example, if the manager were to insert a $5 bill in one of the traps, my guess is that once the bill is found, the employee will check the traps religiously for quite awhile afterward.  The lesson may have to be reinforced periodically, but it is likely to be far more effective than disciplinary proceedings.

Think about what you do to reward your employees for a job well done.  If a new milestone is hit, such as a certain number of days without a safety incident, it might be worthwhile to treat your employees to a cookout, with the managers doing the cooking, serving, and cleaning up.  During the event, why not have some additional fun?  Create awards for nonsensical categories.  For example, if your employees wear uniforms, why not give a "best dressed" award to the person who wears the most colorful socks?  Give small, token rewards to each winner, and be sure to have lots of categories so a high percentage of the employees win at least one award.

Don't underestimate the power of a fun off-site event to motivate employees to higher levels of productivity.  A company picnic that includes family members or a holiday party can encourage your staff to get to know each other on a personal level.  When they know each other better, they may find themselves working more collaboratively, or they may work harder because they feel doing otherwise would be letting their friends down.

Using fun to keep your customers engaged

When was the last time you looked at your web site?  Was it a fun experience?  In addition to being an easy-to-use repository for your customers and stakeholders to find information about your company or to shop for your products, a web site should reflect the culture of your company. 

If you are putting an emphasis on team-building through making your workplace fun, your web site should reflect this.  You might add a joke of the day to the home page to keep people coming back to see what they are missing.  Or maybe you will use some alternative text for errors rather than the standard ones that came with your web site template.  For example, when a visitor mistypes a URL address, most web sites will return a "404 error" stating that the page requested cannot be found.  One company, which has a reputation of being young and hip, instead returns a message that says "Whoa!  You 404'd it, dude!"

What about your newsletter and product pamphlets?  Do they blandly inform your customers about upcoming events, services, and products, or do they give people a reason to read through to the very end?  If you want people to be as interested in the last paragraph as in the first, you need to give them a reason to keep reading.  For example, consider the movie Animal House.  They wanted people to stay until the end of the credits, so they added a section at the end of the movie that showed what happened to each of the characters as they grew up.  These humorous scenarios interspersed with the dry listings of "key grip" and "assistant to the associate producer" assured that people didn't leave the theater before all of the credits had run.