Customer Reviews

Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is an easy read but it by no means is the fluff that you find in so many of these types of books. Many books on this subject are simply a collection of stories that illustrate random examples where others have brought fun into the workplace.

This book goes deeper. It provides the "Why" as well as the "How" and not just the "What". The book is divided into principles that you can apply to your business that actually work. You decide the outcome you want based on the principle you want to implement and do it. You tailor it to your specific business environment.

In other words, this book can actually help your business!!!

Why do employees in top performing organizations always seem to enjoy their work? In her second book Fun Works: Creating Places Where People Love to Work, Leslie Yerkes lays out 11 principles for creating a Fun/Work Fusion in the workplace. She then examines 11 companies, including Southwest Airlines and Harvard University Dining Services, that have successfully applied these principles to merge fun and work. Leslie offers the keys for unlocking each of the 11 principles for making companies happier and healthier. The book includes a Fun/Work Fusion Inventory of behaviors for measuring the extent to which fun has been allowed to enter any workplace. This easy to read book is loaded with nuggets of information designed to help any organization become a more enjoyable, productive and profitable place to work.

This new book from Leslie Yerkes uses a case study format to emphasizes key principles of why having fun at work makes business sense. I like how the book is divided into two main sections, one holds rich and thoughtful case studies and the other, tools and actions to help foster the principles of Fun in your workplace. You can read it like a reference book by using the Table of Contents to find what may be of interest to you. This is good user-friendly design.

In each case, a business is highlighted that provides living proof of both the existence and value of a Fun Works principle. I found these examples to be real and full of ideas to build upon. Companies large and small, from coast to coast provide the framework that shouts, Fun enhances the capability of your organization. People feel more compelled to bring their strengths into the workplace when they are allowed and encouraged to express themselves.

Going beyond corporate success stories, Yerkes has captured and shared simple experiments to try, and suggestions to implement that may help you take fun to a new level in your organization. Being able to find and create fun on-the-job seems to make the day feel less like work and more like an adventure.

I recommend the book as a source of inspiration and a resource for benchmarking practices and principles that can unleash creativity and impact employee retention.

Joseph P. Murphy, Senior Consultant SHL

Chairperson, NorthCoast Employment Management Association (EMA)

As employers compete to attract, engage, and hold great employees, they become more sensitive to their organizational culture. Careful consideration of the alternatives and their consequences inspires enlightened employers to create workplaces where people can be happy, where fun at work is encouraged.

The question arises, understandably, about how to develop a fun work environment without sliding into counterproductive silliness. What's appropriate? Leslie Yerkes, a savvy management consultant from Cleveland, teaches that the key is the process. The underlying philosophies that build an atmosphere where people enjoy their work-and each other-are consistent with concepts that enable empowerment and a sense of being genuine. When people can be "real," they're happier, more fulfilled, more productive, and consequently, more loyal.

In Fun Works, Yerkes presents eleven principles to integrate fun and work. After an introductory overview, her book devotes a chapter to each principle. An explanation of the principle is followed by a case study of how a particular company-a different company for each principle-applies the principle. At the end of each chapter a "heart key" share thoughts designed to increase the reader's ability to apply the principle. An additional feature, "Another Voice," closes each chapter with a comment from an author, manager or business owner to further illuminate the principle.

The book is organized into four parts. The first, the introduction, sets the stage. The second section presents the principles with the support material described above. The third section is a conclusion and Part Four provides some other resources and an index. Among the resources are comments from over 30 authors, speakers, and businesspeople. An inventory is included to benchmark how much fun is present in your organization's work environment.

Each principle-Give Permission to Perform, Challenge Your Bias, Capitalize on the Spontaneous, Trust the Process, Value a Diversity of Fun Styles, Expand the Boundaries, Be Authentic, Be Choiceful, Hire Good People and Get Out of Their Way, Embrace Expansive Thinking and Risk Taking, and Celebrate-is powerful in its own right. The introduction of the principle is short, usually just half a page-at the most, two pages. This was a bit disconcerting; I expected more of an explanation. But, the meat is in the case studies. They're told by Yerkes in the first person, reporting on what she learned while visiting each of her case study companies.

No doubt this book will sell well . . . to all those business leaders-many of them in Human Resources-who seek ways to re-energize their corporate cultures. Combined with the author's previous book, 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work (with Dave Hemsath), this is a valuable resource. While the principles are important, of even greater importance is the case study approach validating that employers really do this stuff.

Yerkes obviously knows her topic. And she apparently sought an opportunity to place the book in a more popular realm by all the commentaries from other contributors. At times I felt like I had re-entered the world of the Chicken Soup series. The addition of an additional 40 pages or so of commentary from others does add some value, but it almost felt like an extra add-on that increased the page count without contributing substantially to the business issue content of the book. Ah, but all the extra stuff did add to the personal, human value . . . and that's part of the message of Fun Works.

With the search for "magic pills" to solve today's workplace problems, human resource professionals, managers, and company owners will make this book popular.

Seldom do business success narratives warrant a permanent place on a manager's *and* an employee's shelf of resources. This exceptional book repays over and over again the initial investment. Yes, the narratives are inspiring. And, they are packed with all sorts of practical and powerful ideas about how success is supported by the human touch of enjoyment, innovative problem-solving, and the sustenance of people's rich natural capabilities.

What's really wonderful about the stories and advice found in Ms. Yerkes' delightful book is how it all just makes sense. It's not either top-down or bottom-up. Instead, this is a book about people working together. It becomes quite clear to the reader that one reason these companies are successful in conventional bottom-line terms is that they are also successful in top-line, human terms.

That's a radical idea! But there's no hyping of the latest management fashion here. FUN WORKS is a book of research that doesn't read like an academic exercise; a book of stories that doesn't read like self-promotion; and a book of recommendations that doesn't read like the latest commandments dictated on the consultant's way to the bank.

It's the kind of book a manager or employee can dip into long after the first read-through and find something valuable to test that very day.

If you're interested in success as a real human motive and fulfillment, you'll keep this book close at hand. It's radical because it's so darn sensible. As I did, you'll read it quickly because Ms. Yerkes is a terrific writer and she walks her talk, but you won't be filing it away!

Leslie Yerkes, co-author of 301 Ways to Have Fun at Work, has gone out on her own to tell us about people who are actually doing it - having fun at work.

People who try to make work fun by bringing in toys or calling special "game breaks" often find themselves fighting a losing battle. If the work itself isn't fun, games and toys (though offering a much welcome break) tend only to highlight how "unfun" the working conditions really are.

By giving us clear case studies of actual "fun practices" (better than "best practices"), Yerkes makes a major contribution to all of us who believe that fun is a practical and profitable way of doing business.

Buy the book. Read the stories. Aloud.

Buy a copy for your boss.

If you're looking for a book that will give you a concise and easy to remember strategy for integrating work and fun--FISH! is the one I'd recommend. In FUN Works, the author presents ELEVEN principles that are supposed to help us "understand the importance of the Fun/Work Fusion." With eleven principles, this book is all over the place, and somehow misses the mark. I fervently believe that work should be FUN, but I didn't find this book particularly helpful in understanding how to make it that way.

I'm Donald Freeman, former General Manager of Operations for Sprint call center in Phoenix, AZ. (Read more about Don in Fish Tales by Charthouse). This books is a must for anyone currently involved in bringing Fun into the workplace and a good book to place beside the book "Fish" by Charthouse. I got real examples from companies and employees in this book that provided me with great ideas to use in my own business. This book provides many detailed examples from companies who have found "being productive is fun". It provides real examples on how companies become a place where people care and where people count. The book demonstrates the importance of celebrations that are honest and really are celebrations of being happy! She provides a lot of insight and their are shared ideas that can be used that have little cost but really make a difference in terms of caring and making work fun! It gives feedback from individuals who found the value and success in bringing "fun to work". If anyone has been challenged with using the Fish philosophy as a tool for fun at work, this book may be the ticket for making it all come together!

What a great inspirational book. Top-notch managers have long-ago learned that one of the key elements to a successful business in creating a motivating, friendly envirnoment. If work seems like fun, it does not seem like "work" because employees are actually doing a task that has been made enjoyable. That is not to say, everyone should just "do their own thing" and work should be a party, and there are definitely safety factors to consider. There needs to be structure and control, but we do not need to sacrifice fun to be productive.

As this book will point out through case studies and affirmative action, there are a variety of principles that can be used to lighten up the workplace and boost moral. If employees are happy, and you have hired the proper employees in the first place, productivity will increase.

In my business management classes, I try to make learning fun. Many of my students are adults who have been out of the school system for several years and find it difficult to re-establish themselves in a structured learning environment. We use a lot of active group participation, creative exercises and humour to relieve stress and tension, encourage open communication, and increase productivity. The positive results and the demand for the training program have skyrocketed. People learn more and are definitely more productive when they are in a positive, relaxed environment. It is unfortunate, more school systems have not adopted the concept of becoming less institutionalized and more adept at creating an environment conducive to learning; one that actually encourages students to WANT to learn. Concrete walls with boxed cubicles for rooms don't quite cut it.

The book is a must read for any business or organization that has a desire to increase productivity. Having fun works and the author has some very valuable tips and suggestions on how fun can be incorporated in the workplace.

i unfortunately didn't get much from this book.

it basically looked at different companies that have a so called 'fun' work environment. basically, the message was hire the right people with a good attitude, trust them, let them be themselves, and get out of there way. yes, that's good advice, but a whole book on that?

i guess i felt like i read this entire book waiting, page after page, to discover some hidden treasure of ideasneedless to say, i never really found it.

as i read more book in this same genre, i'm getting the feeling that i'm being had. someone as one or two ideas, then they write a entire book around it. but most of it is fluff.

i'm still searching for a good book that has solid creative ideas for how to have fun and reward employees.

it should have been a tip off for me that the last review was in 2007, over 3 years ago.