Meet Nick Gianoulis, aka “The Godfather of Fun.” As the founder of the Fun Dept., Nick spent over a decade helping companies bring the fun back into business.

Nick has a thing or two (or three!) to say about fun and how it can change everything at work. Read on to discover Nick’s top 4 reasons to have more fun at work.

Google, Zappos and Southwest share one thing in common that gives them an edge over their competitors. It’s not their innovation or even customer service.

These companies have an inherent or stated culture of fun.

In fact, some of the best companies in the world, those denoted as “great” in Fortune’s “100 Best Companies to Work For,” have a whopping 81% of their employees say they work in a “fun” environment.

How fun is your company? Take the 30 Second Fun Factor Assessment and get tips & tricks to take your company’s Fun Factor to the next level.

“Fun” is not a silver bullet. Unfortunately, installing a slide in your office won’t magically make your business more profitable overnight. However, creating a fun work culture is proven to increase long-term revenue and give you an edge over your competitors.

Here’s why fun at work works:

1. Organizational Health and Emotional Wellness

It’s a fact: a healthy and happy employee is a more productive employee.

Think of it this way. Human capital is the largest asset and the single largest expense for most companies. Building a team of happy, productive employees is one of the best investments for your bottom line.

The biggest advances in technology and other capital investments today are producing marginal returns and impact on productivity. The next revolution in the workplace is culture. Be one step ahead of the game and start investing in your culture now.

2. Productivity

Do you and your employees ever get a break? Are your employees expected to work 8-hours per day, straight with no formal breaks? Fun can offer great breaks and distractions (not wasting time), but true valuable break time.

One national call and customer service center offers its employees a unique schedule. They break up their average daily time commitment into on-phone time and quick breaks (dubbed “shorts”). Shorts are sprinkled throughout any of the call center employees’ days. They last 15-minutes or less, during which time, employees can play ping pong, take a walk outside, or do anything they please during that time.

Look at Google. They give their employees 20% of any given work day to simply “do what they want to do”. And no, that time does not have to be work related. Why? One reason is for the sake of productivity of their workforce. They realize that their people are working hard. The breaks are meant to enhance productivity of employee on-time.

3. Relationships & Loyalty = Retention

Relationships and loyalty (sometimes retention) go hand in hand. A staggering 79% of companies believe they have a significant retention and engagement problem. The average cost of losing an employee ranges from 1 1/2 times salary to 4-times their salary, depending on the position!

What about attracting the next generation of great talent? Given the choice, most people – especially millennials – 77% will choose culture over pay. Culture and fun is a differentiator that will give you the competitive advantage.

4. Employee Engagement

How can engagement be affected and in turn, affect the bottom line? In human resources, one very popular metric is employee engagement – an employee's’ emotional and active commitment to the success of the company. Engaged workers are enthusiastic about their jobs. And disengaged workers are not.

Here’s a shocking statistic. According to a Gallup survey an average company loses $2,246 per disengaged employee per year. Why? Disengaged employees take more sick days. They arrive late, miss deadlines, and are more likely to instigate customer complaints. They drag people and business down.

Fun can help. Fun has a 68% correlation to employee engagement scores. In other words, if someone perceives their work environment is “fun” on a survey, their individual engagement score will be affected positively by 68%.

In other studies, 75% of companies observed who incorporate fun into their culture report increased or maintained engagement scores over time.

So, how do you get started?

1. Start by assessing your culture. Ask yourself if you see fun as becoming a core value of your business and then explore the proven methods of implementation.
2. Get Leadership buy in. The next big revolution in the working world is focusing in on culture. Enlightened leaders recognize that the old hierarchical ways of doing business and treating employees like numbers, not people, are no longer effective.

How fun is your company? Take the 30 Second Fun Factor Assessment and get tips & tricks to take your company’s Fun Factor to the next level.

You will be glad you considered fun: so will your employees and your business!

Learn more about the  Nick and The Fun Dept here.