A happy office

Josephine Tan
Regional HR Manager, GEXPRO Asia

HR m anagement is the management of an organisation’s most valuable resource – its employees. Humans are social animals by nature. Hence, HR must play a key role in the social aspects of an organisation.

A pleasant and fun workplace environment often breeds highly motivated employees - if they can play and relieve stress, the harder and more efficiently they will work. There can be many creative ideas for the injection of fun into the workplace without incurring high costs and HR can play the role of a catalyst and galvanising factor in the creation of “fun”. HR can leverage management for understanding, flexibility and support.

There should be a direct link between workplace fun and increases in productivity, teamwork and good customer service. Management and employees alike will likely be more dedicated to the organisation and turnover should be rather low. This will be a very good advertisement and testament for any organisation and its HR department.


Willy Saelan
HR Director – Marketing & R&D SEAA, Unilever Asia

Fun in the workplace is important, as we believe the higher employee engagement levels an organisation has, the better contributions staff can make towards the business. We believe fun plays an important role in improving employee engagement. HR should move away from being the traditional “discipline master” in an organisation to a department that’s responsible for injecting fun into the organisation’s corporate culture. HR should facilitate a healthy discussion amongst members of the business to create a cohesive and positive atmosphere in the workplace. Ultimately, everyone should be responsible to bring fun into the workplace, even some of our brands (ice cream, for example) revolve around bringing fun into life.

At Unilever, we have institutionalised fun into the very fabric of the company’s way of life. We have a programme called “Our Space, Our Community” where all staff are encouraged to participate; to not only have fun but to learn from others, as well as actively participating in social responsibility initiatives.


Neil Persaud
HR Director - Asia Pacific, Arkadin Global Conferencing

Morale is an important aspect in an organisation as it sets the tone for the company’s direction and productivity outputs. It is vital for companies to have fun and enjoyable working environments so as to improve and maintain morale levels
of staff.

To show Arkadin’s commitment to providing enjoyment to its employees, we have enshrined it as one our four core values. It is something we take pride in delivering to our employees, customers, and shareholders. With most individuals spending 40 to 60 hours a week at work, they need to feel a sense of enjoyment or having fun while at work.

HR should be at the helm of leading the fun in an organisation through proactive management and departmental support. It can be very hard for HR professionals to interact or speak to every employee every day. This is why it is necessary for us to work with our department heads to ensure their employees are engaged, experiencing enjoyment, and having fun.