HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE

Video: HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE

Video: HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE
Video: Humor at work | Andrew Tarvin | TEDxOhioStateUniversity 2024, May
HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE
HUMOR IN THE WORKPLACE
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Humor consultants and other professionals recommending the use of humor in the workplace often argue that higher levels of humor at work yield various benefits, including greater coherence and collaboration, improved social interactions between workers and managers, and better worker morale and health., less stress, and higher levels of creativity, problem solving and productivity. While most studies of industrial humor are qualitative and descriptive, the findings suggest that enthusiastic claims about the benefits of humor at work are somewhat oversimplified. While the workplace is often considered an overly serious and humorless area, research shows that in fact, humor and laughter are quite common in most organizations.

In addition, research has shown that humor in the workplace fulfills a variety of functions, not only promoting interaction and collaboration, but also detrimental to employee morale and a productive work environment. In addition to being a form of play, useful for relieving stress and enjoying work, humor serves an important function as a mode of communication that conveys potentially harmful messages in an ambiguous work context. Humor itself is used to convey many messages and achieve various goals. It is used to reduce or reinforce differences in position, express agreement or disagreement, facilitate cooperation or resistance, include or exclude others from a group, increase cohesion and strengthen relationships, or undermine authority and position.

Thus, simply increasing the level of humor at work simply quantitatively is unlikely to bring only positive results. While most humor consultants agree that certain types of humor are inappropriate and harmful in the workplace, it is not easy to distinguish between harmful and beneficial forms of humor, or to recommend one type of humor over the other. For example, it is often difficult to know where friendly teasing and good-natured banter ends and ridicule and unwanted jokes begin.

The use of humor in the workplace comes with not only benefits but also potential risks. One particularly negative type of humor that has received considerable attention in recent decades is derogatory humor as a form of persecution.

As in other fields, humor in the context of work is best seen as a type of social skill or interpersonal competence that is applicable for both positive and negative purposes. Consequently, the challenge for managers and business consultants is not just to increase the level of use of humor by employees, but to try to understand how existing humor reflects the dynamics of power and the general culture in the organization.

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