Member Article

Back to work blues? The Pauls suggest you bounce back to work on a space hopper!

BrightHR’s Co-Founders, CEO Paul Tooth and CMO Paul Harris discuss getting back into the swing of things this January and injecting fun and play into the office for the new year.

With the festive season over and everyone back into the workplace it can be difficult for employees to overcome the January blues. Across the UK, and across all sectors, employees are struggling to strike the perfect work-life balance and are increasingly becoming unable to cope with growing stress levels. This new year Paul Harris and Paul Tooth believe it’s time to kick start play-time in the office, for a happier more productive work force.

BrightHR’s recent report ‘It Pays to Play’ found companies who provide fun in the office all year around were more likely to have a productive and creatively engaged team, so when we are returning to the office after a long break it is important to keep these office values alive and kicking, said Paul Harris. “Fun can come in all manner of forms from the simple to the luxurious, but what both ends of the spectrum do is value the employee and in turn makes the employee want to work hard, engage with employers and colleagues and ultimately be happy to be in the work place.”

Where you live in the UK can impact how much fun you have at work and how stressed you feel going back to the office this 2016. For example, BrightHR research found workers in Edinburgh and Brighton were most likely to believe workplace fun will make them work harder and be more productive, with Leeds, Liverpool and Plymouth least likely. And surprisingly Newcastle was found to be the least fun place to work in the whole of the UK closely followed by the capital, which unsurprisingly experienced the highest stress, with 84 per cent admitting they felt stressed from time to time, and 36 per cent feel stressed a lot of the time working in London.

Commenting on the findings, Paul Tooth said he really hoped businesses across the country will take heed and encourage their workforce to embrace play in the new year. “As we look across the workplace spectrum of the UK it is clear there is much progress to be made in terms of employee engagement.

For those returning to work from the Christmas break, the new year can often feel like a blue slump, with the credit card bills rolling in and the holiday in the far distant future office moral can often be low.“

Keen to shake off the doom and gloom stigma of a January office, and fight the decline towards the office-infamous ‘Blue Monday’ Paul Harris adds, “why not adopt a new work ethos for your office in 2016 so you ensure your work force enjoy fun and play every week for the rest of the year. Employees shouldn’t just be looking forward to their next holiday, they should have office fun day in the diary. It can be the simplest things like an office pet or charity team bake offs, ultimately fun in 2016 has to start in office.”

“We just need to inject a little more fun into employees’ lives so they can be happier and businesses can benefit from a harder working and more motivated and productive workforce,” said Paul Tooth. “Work is no longer about getting the job done and then going home for your fun – younger generations want to enjoy their work too. It could be because we work longer hours, have to wait longer for retirement and have less financial security from work, meaning we need to get some other return for our time investment. The time we spend in the office.”

Adopting fun cultures is a long term for the benefit for your business, boosting productivity and creativity in the office. If people are happy in the workplace this is the most effective way to not only retain staff but also ensure you have fun moral in the office. Climbing aboard his office space hopper, Paul Harris, reminded that life is too short to be blue about January. Insisting the only way to see in the new year was with a playful bounce in the right direction - fun!

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Paul Harris .