The Service Industries Journal
The Service Industries Journal
The Service Industries Journal
To cite this article: T. Redman & B.P. Mathews (2002) Managing Services: Should We Be Having Fun?, The Service Industries
Journal, 22:3, 51-62
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Managing Services:
Should We Be Having Fun?
TO M R E D M A N and B R I A N P. M AT H E W S
on a case study of a retail organisation that built fun into the way
the business was run. While some evidence is found in support of
the potential benefits a number of problems also emerge.
INTRODUCTION
There is a growing interest in the view that when employees have fun there
are distinct individual and organisational benefits to be gained. Often,
especially in the more popular management literature, a great deal is
claimed for fun. After detailing the benefits attributed to fun we examine the
wider literature on the subject to explore the ‘how’ and ‘why’ issues to
illuminate a variety of the aspects of fun in practice and attempt to identify
the underlying managerial philosophy. The second major section of the
article is devoted to an in-depth case analysis of a UK service organisation
that adopted fun as part of its overall business strategy.
Simply having fun at work is claimed to be sufficient to increase
productivity and job satisfaction, improve creativity, reduce absenteeism
and stress, improve interpersonal skills, enhance group cohesion, empower
staff and accelerate organisational learning [Stewart, 1996; Matthes, 1993].
According to Barsoux [1993] fun can make an organisation more
participative and responsive, generate more organisational energy, dispel
nervousness, and enhance team spirit and diffuse conflict. In essences it
‘humanises’ the organisation [Barsoux, 1993: 76]. For Watson [1994]
Tom Redman is Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management at the Durham Business
School, University of Durham, Mill Hill Lane, Durham City DH1 3LB. Brian Mathews is
Professor of Marketing at the Luton Business School, University of Luton, Park Square, Luton
LU1 3JU.
The Service Industries Journal, Vol.22, No.3 (July 2002), pp.51–62
PUBLISHED BY FRANK CASS, LONDON
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52 T H E S E RV I C E I N D U S T R I E S J O U R N A L
Fun at work
A well-developed ‘fun industry’ is emerging to supply would-be funsters
with advice, workshops and consultancy on making work more fun. There
are now many business books [for example, MacErlean, 1998, Greenwhich,
1997; Hemsath et al., 1997; Firth, 1995; Metcalf, 1992] solely dedicated to
advising managers how to make work life more fun for their staff. There is
also a growing management consultancy sector with specialist corporate
entertainment companies and ‘humour consultants’ [Gibson, 1994]. Fornary
[1996] reports how consultants provide services such as ‘humour relations
workshops’ for senior managers who have ‘mislaid’ their sense of fun. CDs,
audio tapes, web-sites dedicated to fun, and software such as SMILE
(Subjective Multidimensional Interactive Laughter Evaluation) are now
available to encourage fun at work [Leo, 1999]. No organisational practice,
it seems, cannot be ‘improved’ by an injection of fun. Caudron [1992]
reports how some US companies have even conducted downsizing exercises
in a ‘fun’ way (lampooning memos titled ‘Honey, I Shrunk the Company’).
Fun it appears may now even be a ‘core competence’ for sustainable
competitive advantage. In part this may now be a requirement for success in
the modern corporation given the work values of the current generation of
employees. Some commentators have suggested that making the working
environment a fun place is a key requirement of motivating ‘Generation X’
employees [Tulgan, 1996]. Such employees are not imbued with the same
depth of ‘paying your dues’ work ethics of the previous generation [Romano,
1994]. For example, fun is seen as a key component of success at one of the
UK’s business success stories of the 1990s, the Virgin empire of Richard
Branson. Fun is one of Virgin’s ‘four principal ideas’ (along with quality,
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unique selling point, one that has been difficult to imitate by its competitors,
the provision of a high quality customer service based on fun [Frieberg and
Frieberg, 1998; Milliman et al., 1999]. The company sees its mission to
provide ‘Positively Outrageous Service’ which in turn requires ‘Positively
Outrageous Spirit’ from its employees [Sunoo, 1995]. Having fun at work
in turn is seen as the way to attain this spirit. Fun at Southwest manifests
itself in a wide variety of ways from dressing up days (for example, at
Halloween), staff telling jokes, playing harmonicas and singing to
customers, bunny-eared flight attendants popping out of the overhead
baggage compartments and putting rubber cockroaches in passenger drinks.
Staff, especially in US firms, are variously encouraged to have pillow
fights, water and squirt gun fights, use ventriloquist dummies to break bad
news to the board, have funny business cards, sets of clowns noses, engage
in belly dancing and of course karaoke, etc. [Anfunso, 1998]. Some
authorities are even setting laughter targets for employees with figures
ranging from 15 [Caudron, 1992] to 200 laughs, chortles or chuckles [Leo,
1999: 20] per day. An organisational architecture of fun is emerging.
Organisations have appointed fun managers and set up committees to
organise fun [Miller, 1996]. For example, one US food company has set up
a ‘fun committee’ whose role is simply to devise fun things for employees
to do [Flynn, 1996]. One of these was to ‘diffuse tensions’ by throwing
leftover cheesecake at (suitably protected) managers. Kodak has created a
‘humour room’ equipped with fun books, videos, software, a toy store etc.
where its employees can go for a ‘fun break’.
Steele [1992] describes the use of a fun approach to revitalising rather
staid HRM practices, such as combining cash benefits with interesting and
varied gifts to stimulate a suggestion scheme. As is often the case, suggestion
schemes ‘run out of steam’ despite their potential value to an organisation.
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54 T H E S E RV I C E I N D U S T R I E S J O U R N A L
He recounts the productive methods that incorporate fun into the scheme.
Here prize winners receive a cash payment, a humorous gift and ‘the coveted
SMART award (a specially designed trophy with a magic self-illuminating
light bulb)’ [p.96]. The gifts are, he maintains, a more effective motivator
and have a longer-term impact than the cash payments. Choice of gifts is
important and emphasises the fun element, for example a remote control
roaring dinosaur; coloured dancing tennis shoes and a child’s money-box in
the form of a robot that ate coins are cited as ‘memorable’ gifts. Such items
tend to be retained in the workplace rather than taken home.
The main problem with the claimed benefits of fun, or the
appropriateness of differing approaches to it, is that there is very little hard
evidence. Most, if not all, are based upon rather sketchy anecdotal accounts
rather than more rigorous enquiry. Here some of the more popular accounts
even deride the search for evidence-based links between fun and
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service culture that is of interest to the concerns of this article. The company
culture management had two key inter-linked aspects, fun and empowerment.
Fun
The central concern of culture management, like many other retailers was to
attempt to obtain commitment to the company’s values of outstanding
customer service [for example, see Ogbonna and Wilkinson, 1988; Ogbonna
and Whipp, 1999]. All new management practices and initiatives were
expected to support this aim. However, what was distinctive about them was
the ‘fun’ way in which management set about achieving the desired culture
change. Developing a work culture that emphasised that serving customers
well was also a ‘fun’ thing to do was seen by senior managers’ as providing
a simple and effective way of attaining the necessary ‘emotional buy-in by
staff’ to the company’s business goals. In particular it would emphasise that
the staff’s interests and those of management were closely intertwined. Thus,
for everybody to attain the company’s business goals was a win-win
situation. Customers would get better services, the business would do better
and staff and management would benefit directly from this by improved job
security in a competitive climate and better terms and conditions as well as
improved job satisfaction. Thus senior management felt such a culture would
provide a way of emphasising, in classic unitary style, the need for managers
and staff to work closely together in order to fight off the intensifying
competition in the sector. Thus:
We wanted to build a fun culture at DIY Co to show our staff that we
were not just a bunch of stuffed suits. That we are human too. We feel
it builds a bond with our employees. It says to them we are all in this
together. DIY retailing is an intensely competitive business.
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56 T H E S E RV I C E I N D U S T R I E S J O U R N A L
We feel that by being able to have a laugh and a lark with our staff that
they identify with management more and in a fun way we get our
main business messages over much more effectively.
Thus the development of a fun culture had to start with the managers
themselves. Managers needed to publicly demonstrate to the shop floor that
they believed in the fun philosophy and that shop floor employees should
too.
At DIY Co, we take the competition very seriously, we have too – they
are on our doorstep – but we try not to take ourselves too seriously.
Senior managers expected their middle and junior mangers to be
enthusiastic about encouraging fun at work. Insufficient enthusiasm for fun
at work was not to be tolerated. Indeed not to be seen as a funster would
have a negative impact on your promotional prospects and could even be
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career threatening.
Our culture is one of work hard – play hard. We want staff who can
adapt to this way of working. We want this at all levels. We want it in
our front-line staff; we want those in the warehouse or the offices to
be the same. But we especially want our managers to fit this way of
working. If managers cannot adapt to this, what chance have we with
those lower down? In the past we have not always got it right and have
had to let some managers go. You know, ones that were reasonable at
the hard work bit but they were far too stuffy to adapt to the playing
hard bit. You know, going straight home after work every night. Such
behaviour is potentially career threatening here.
Having fun involved a wide range of activities. Often this included fancy
dress, singing to customers and events such as managers being locked into
sets of stocks for staff (and customers) to throw wet sponges at etc. Staff
communications were produced in a quirky and irreverent style, for
example in relation to providing advice on products to customers,
employees were encouraged to ‘KISS’ the customer or ‘Keep it Simple,
Stupid’. The company had many internal newsletters presented in a
humorous style. These publications took great delight in poking fun at
individual managers (photographs of senior managers with a request for
staff to add a humorous caption, spoof lonely hearts columns ‘shy but fun-
loving rich managing director requires similar’ etc.) but also at staff
generally. The various stories reported often emphasised the value of the
work-hard play-hard culture by stressing how considerable enjoyment was
had by all involved and the commercial value in improved sales arising
from a particular fun event.
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Night Hippo costumes in the former case and in the latter swimming ware.
Customers who also dressed up to suit the particular promotion received
extra discounts. The garden centre ran a humorous radio phone-in
programme, the ‘Crazy Gardening Show’, in conjunction with a local radio
station. Parties were held, for example, at Christmas, during shop opening
times and customers invited to join in the fun. Customer Karaoke sessions,
with discounts for the best performance, were commonplace. Other events
for customers have included visits from ‘Mr Blobby’, sponsored car
washes, in store treasure hunts, theme days (1940s, Star Trek the Wizard of
Oz). The company was sensitive to the fact that these events may cause
offence to some of their more ‘straight’ customers. However, customer
feedback from fun activities via letters, surveys and ‘goalie’ data (goalies
were staff at exit points assigned to elicit direct customer feedback on the
particular fun event) was generally very supportive.
They also attempted to build a celebratory element into its culture for
those employees who go that ‘extra mile’ in customer service terms. It had
a wide range of ways of celebrating staff performance in customer service
from announcements in staff magazines, presentations on the shop floor,
employee of the month/year awards etc. Again all of these celebrations were
conducted in a fun way. For example, ad hoc cash awards for staff who have
performed well had to be put towards something they wanted to do as long
as ‘it is not serious’ and the ‘gotcha’. The ‘gotcha Oscar’ was an award
given when a member of staff was caught giving ‘wonderful customer
service’. For example, one delivery employee won the award when a
customer rang in to ask if the delivery driver could bring him 20 cigarettes
when he brought the items she had purchased from the company, due to be
delivered later that day. The gotcha was awarded to the employee for
arranging this.
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Empowerment: Just-do-it
DIY Co was one of the first service companies in the UK to become
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60 T H E S E RV I C E I N D U S T R I E S J O U R N A L
aspect of the stock ordering system and at times some employees abused its
potential for decreased direct managerial control. For example, the
company had to dismiss several groups of employees at a number of stores
who fraudulently manipulated customer discount arrangements and
customer return polices. At one store the entire cohort of modern
apprentices, the company’s managers of the future, where dismissed for
various fraudulent activities. At another store a training manager was
dismissed for conducting an extra-martial affair during company time whilst
ostensibly working at other sites. Such problems, although they had tainted
the empowerment regime and brought back calls for increased control from
some mangers, were seen by senior managers as being down to several ‘bad
apples’ and organisational deviants rather than a widespread problem with
the just-do-it philosophy. Nevertheless, the company’s problem with stock
shrinkage and wastage, reaching a peak of over a £1,000 per day in the
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gardening departments alone, suggests that there might have been deeper
problems than the management cared to admit to. Privately, that is, in non-
formal research settings, some managers were less guarded about the
problems of the fun culture and the just-do-it approach. For example:
To speak out against the management style here is seen as heresy. It’s
also dangerous. It’s seen as a good thing by senior management and
that’s that. I have my doubts. It could work if we could get better staff.
The problem is that senior management don’t see the staff I have to
work with.
It is not very difficult to see why fun at work is now a popular managerial
discourse. Work has never before been so un-fun-like. Employees are
working longer hours than ever before and job insecurity and downsizing is
widespread. Workplace stress is rapidly increasing and new work problems
such as bullying are emerging. Fun it seems is much needed in many
workplaces but the hyper-competitive economic environment results in it
being neglected [Yokoyama, 1998]. Whether some of the practices of fun at
work described above can help alleviate the stresses and strains of modern
work-life is debatable.
The case illustrates some of the potential benefits of embracing fun in a
service business philosophy. In particular, in line with the claims of Sunoo
[1995] it did diffuse the high employee stress associated with exceptional
levels of customer service, thus countering ‘burnout’. It also made it a
relatively attractive place to work for the majority of staff. Many of the ‘fun’
events involving customers were commercially successful in addition to
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While the case illustrates a wide range of the benefits that can be
achieved one significant message seems to be that out of control,
competitive fun has serious negative repercussions. This is well summed up
by a final quotation:
Sometimes it’s not much ******* fun to work for a fun company
(Building products employee interviewed at DIY hypermarket).
Thus, it appears that fun cannot be seen as the universally applicable ‘quick
fix’ that is suggested by the managerial literature. It is clear that to develop
a culture such as Southwest Airlines requires universal commitment from
staff, a HRM policy that supports it and a long term time horizon.
Equally, at the risk of being described as ‘humourless bastards’ [Firth,
1995: 135], we suggest the claims made for having fun at work need to be
further investigated with further rigour. Managers appear to have latched on
to having fun at work as a very cheap and sometimes cheerful way of
achieving a quick business fix. As such it runs the risk of going the way of
many management fads – something launched in a blaze of glory, or in this
case laughter, and then quietly fading away.
In sum, if fun as a free way of potentially improving organisational and
individual performance sounds too good to be true, it is probably because it
is too good to be true. However, we should be careful not to finish on too
pessimistic a note especially in an article about fun. Fun may have been
talked up and it seems very unlikely that it is capable of delivering all of the
benefits many writers claim for it. Nevertheless, the idea of the post-modern
manager as a corporate clown and the management consultant as the
corporate jester is not without its immediate appeal!
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Barsoux, J.L., 1993, Funny Business: Humour, Management and Business Culture, London:
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Caudron, S., 1992, ‘Humour is Healthy in the Workplace’, Personnel Journal, Vol.71, No.6,
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