Fun setting up your own business

Tony Hsieh once said and I quote, “Happiness should be the business model for Startups.” And this does hold true in every sense of the word. Companies where employees are engaged have been shown to generate more profit and revenue growth, deliver higher levels of customer satisfaction, and overall work more productively. Now more than ever, companies are going all out to provide a wonderful experience for their workers. Ensuring that they’re happy, engaged, and having fun at work. Work-life integration is becoming common for companies of all sizes.

And it is of little surprise that founders of successful startups tend to epitomize what it means to have an engaged workforce driven by passion and yearning for success, and often parlaying full-time employment for the opportunity to create a meaningful career on their own terms. These are the employees that companies should cherish and should go that extra mile to ensure that they are happy at work.
There are a few ideas that organisations can look into, in order to ensure a work environment that is filled with positivity and above all “fun”.

• Fun must be promoted: The management and the leadership of the organisation should ensure that they themselves should be having fun and should joke around once in a while in order to communicate to the employees that it is okay to do so. This promotes a healthy work environment and release the pressure that builds up because of the kind of work pressure that builds up at the Startups.
• Setting the Tone: With Freedom comes responsibility and this tone should be set right, right from the beginning. While having fun at work can work wonders for the organisation, however, at the same time organisations should draw a line between healthy and unhealthy fun. It’s important to have boundaries. Things like racist or sexist remarks should have no place in an organisation that aspires for growth.
• Have a Fun Committee: Having a Fun committee is the best thing that management can plan. These committees ensure that they plan some activities where employees feel engaged and they have fun at the same time. This takes of a lot of work pressure that the companies face.
• Celebrating small Achievements: While everyone celebrates a big victory, it is equally important to celebrate every small win and especially in Startups, where every small victory is a big achievement in itself. It’s important to recognise hard work and this is one of the ways employees stay motivated.
• Team Games: Whether it is ping pong table, a foosball table, or an Xbox on a big screen, let your employees unwind after a long day or whenever they need a break with some fun games. These small things go a long way in helping to promote a fun environment.
• Birthday Celebrations: One’s birthday is the most important to them, so what best way to say you care about your employee than celebrating their Birthday. Sending birthday mailers, celebrating birthdays on floor, etc are some of the things that the startups can plan for their employees in order to make them feel important to the system.
• Group Assignments: Introducing aspects of competition, cause the employees to work together to win. Hence, it is a good idea to give group assignments to the employees. These teamwork exercises will be extended to the workplace and the company will start doing better because the employees will start working as a team. Indulging in such activities will give them an opportunity of getting to know each other and thus work to accommodate each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

Now-a-days companies have a habit of poaching employees from each other.  If an employee is not satisfied at their current workplace, then they would easily fall for other companies providing better work environment, something that the Startups just can’t afford.  Getting the employees out of work to let them have fun is not a way of wasting time, but building the company.  Many loyal employees are fostered from such activities. And this should be a must have for the budding Startups.