It is has been argued that humor can be an obstacle of the communication between colleagues. Chapman (Malone, 1980) states, “humor has often been characterized as base and degenerate, fit only for the ignorant and foolish”. Moreover, using humor in the workplace often leads to sexual harassment, racial discrimination, etc.
However, humor can be an efficient way to build relationship with other colleagues. According to Baughman (2001), he mentions that Borge, the great humorist pianist states, “A smile is the shortest distance between two people”. Nowadays, as teamwork is becoming more and more essential in any organization, employees have to communicate with other people frequently. Using humor in the conversation can have a positive impact in building understanding between different people. Moreover, humor can make other people feel they are important, for example, when a manager uses humor to make his subordinators laugh, they will feel valued and respected (Shearer, 1998). Lastly, Buxman (2001) notes, “Sharing a laugh helps co-workers establish a bond and develop rapport”. According to Crain (1995), a director of a major university gave one hundred fund-raising presentations to the audiences. He only used humor in his fifty speeches; on the other hand, he did not use humor in other fifty speeches. The result was that the presentations in which he used humor raised more money than the presentations in which he did not use humor.
Sometimes, humor might result into miscommunication between employees. However, if they can avoid using inappropriate humor in their offices, humor can be a very useful tool to improve camaraderie in the workplace. Shearer (1998) states “laughing with other people is healthy and liberating, but laughing at another person is unhealthy”. When people laugh together, they share a humorous situation. Both the humorist and the recipient will feel happy. However, when people laugh at another person, only the humorist will be happy, the recipient will not be happy. According to Belker (1997), “laugh at” humor is funny, but it is based on other people’s expense. This kind of humor usually offends other people, sometimes even makes an enemy. Therefore, Tulin (1998) explains that the key to distinguish whether this humor is appropriate or inappropriate depends on the effect of our jokes on the recipient and others in the workplace. Consequently, people should think very carefully before they make jokes. They should keep asking themselves whether their joke might offend anyone of my colleagues or make anybody unhappy.
It is claimed that if humor is injected in the workplace, the profit of organizations will be decreased. For this reason, humor can increase the frequency of employee errors, etc (Ford, 2003).
On the other hand, According to Braverman (1993), humor can improve employee’s productivity. For example, the Southwest Airlines has been making a profit every year since humor was injected into the workplace. Buxman (2001) notes that when people have to do their boring jobs again and again, their productivity will be destroyed. Humor can enable people to concentrate on their jobs for a long time by making the work become more interesting. Moreover, Ford (2000) notes that humor, which is related to organization’s productivity, can bring a lot of positive impacts to organizations, such as, attraction of new employees, reduction of employee turnover and absenteeism rate and growth of the customer’s satisfaction. In addition, humor also can be a very powerful motivator. The increased morale can make employees become more productive (Baughman, 2001). William Hodge (cited in Braverman, 1993), a management consultant, has done a survey on 329 company executives, which shows that 97 percent strongly believe humor is worthwhile. Another research conducted by Burke (cited in Braverman, 1993) tells us that 84 percent of human resource managers think a sense of humor can make employees do their job better.
Lastly, in order to evaluate the possibility of injecting humor in the workplace, it is necessary to analyze the reasons why employees can not express their humorous side while they are working.
The most important reason why employees take their work seriously is because traditional organizations do not allow people to have fun in the workplace. Traditional supervisors strongly believe that a serious working atmosphere can guarantee employees to be more productive. Managers act like police officers. They always tell their employees work at the job, play at your home and catch the employees who make jokes in the workplace. In these companies, employees are expected to go to work on time, be serious and put all their energy into their jobs to help companies make more money. They should leave their humorous side for breaks and after-hour activities (Newstrom, 2002).
In the opinion of Baughman (2001), another main reason why employees can not use humor in the workplace is because our traditional education suppresses our humor side. Firstly, as both humor and play can make people laugh, it is understandable that humor be seen as play. Employees have been taught by their teachers that they should not play while they are studying. When they join in the workforce, they still can not break away from this view that play is play; work is work. They believe that work and humor should not go together. Secondly, schools also destroy people’s ability to see things from different perspectives. Humor needs people to see things in a different way. Without this ability, people can not be humorous. Oech (cited in Baughman, 2001) gives a vivid example to prove that humorous side of employees has been destroyed. When his teacher put a half-inch dot on the blackboard and asked them what that was, most high-school students kept silent. Finally, one student answered that it was just a dot. Then, his teacher explained that the same exercise had been done in a kindergarten one day before. He got 50 interesting answers which were a cigar butt, an owl’s eye, a star, and so on.
Employees take themselves very seriously in the offices is not because they do not want to have fun; is because the humorous side of employees is suppressed by the organization and education. Therefore, humor is very easy to be injected in the workplace by managers. Managers can educate their employees that humor and work can go together, and encourage their employees to use humor in the workplace. If humor can be encouraged in the workplace, employees will be very happy to accept it.
In conclusion, humor should not be prohibited in the workplace; conversely, it should be instilled in there. People take themselves too seriously in the workplace, because their humorous side has been suppressed. As infusing humor in the workplace can bring both employees and organizations a lot of benefits, managers should encourage employees to express their humor in the workplace.
List of references
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