If you are working 8 to 10 hours a day endlessly to meet the deadline, or trying to add more creativity to your presentation, but you can't seem to do it. Then you secretly want a change in your workplace or your working criteria.

Creating an enjoyable workplace and happy employees allows you to build trust, increase productivity, attain overall satisfaction, and boost revenue. There is no doubt that the absence of fun and activity decreases one's well-being and productivity at work.

The benefit of playtime may sound counterintuitive, but having playtime only during childhood is the old traditional approach. Playtime for adults is showing results everywhere, especially at the workplace. And if you put play first you will actually get even more work done. According to statistics, more than 50 percent of respondents stated that spending time with your colleagues and friends boosts your productivity at work.

How Can Playtime Boost Your Productivity?

Office playtime allows us to build trust, rapport, and tends to create good communication with other team members. More importantly, it removes the stressful management practices and helps to get yourself away from the workload.

Here are a few reasons why playtime should be practiced at the offices:

Play Unites Team Members

Office work is all about collaborating with coworkers. It is the first and foremost priority that should be implemented by every office worker. It helps to build better results, keen communication, and fosters a strong sense of community to boost the team bond.

Playing together allows a sense of boundaries. Moreover, it motivates most introverts to share their thoughts. When you enjoy a carefree conversation with your colleague, it will make you feel relaxed and develop confidence in each other. If your team members are more than just colleagues, then they will work better together.

Play Relieves Stress & Decreases Absenteeism

Playtime relieves stress and brings team members together, helping them to connect physically and mentally with other individuals. We know that most of the days in the office are stressful, with deadlines, clients, and challenging workmates.

So, incorporating play can provide an avenue to relieve stress from work life. It has powerful stress-releasing attributes for emotional and cognitive well-being. Playtime activates a feel-good chemical (endorphin) which helps to eliminate anxiety and depression, let go of some daily stressors, and reduces absenteeism caused due to burnout or illness.

Play Improves Cognitive Skills

Playtime is essential for cognitive development. Games like Sudoku or chess have been shown to enhance healthy brain functioning. Playful behavior appears to have a positive effect on the brain, which promotes better problem solving and enhanced creativity, which is the important mode of cognitive play.

Play Increases Workplace Satisfaction

Employees who have fun at work are more likely to work better, whereas in the past when employees were not satisfied with their work they would be more likely to quit. However, times have changed, and millions of employees are doing their job just to earn a decent living, and only a few are doing their job with satisfaction.

Psychology expert Julia Kane from Assignment Assistance UK suggests, "When employees are having fun, then it means they are less likely to suffer from damaging effects such as stress or depression. This is the grim reality where most have to do the same thing over and over again, without any fun and play, this could lose their interest, and they will never achieve satisfaction with their work."

Play Increases Productivity

To constantly perform well at work or to keep your mood better, all you need to give yourself is a positive experience. Taking a break from work or engaging in free play is known to boost cognitive function.

Working for a brief period can make your work stressful, whereas working long with short breaks gives much quality and quantity to work. Experts suggest that playtime eliminates boredom or fatigue and gives job satisfaction, and enhances creativity that ultimately results in improved productivity.

Play Can Foster Creativity

Fun activities at the workplace foster the thinking capabilities of individuals. A fun environment and humor create better learning opportunities at the workplace, which makes them feel ideal at work. By incorporating fun activities, you are not only willing to learn new things but also increase innovation within the workplace.

Fun Activities To Do AT the Office

Creating fun activities at the office gives a sense of trust, increases social interaction, and builds a connection with management. Following are some fun and entertaining activities that can be arranged at a workplace to enhance productivity.

Scavenger Hunt

A scavenger hunt is a classic game in which each team is given a list of items to find around your office. This will encourage team members to work together and increase productivity.

Solve A Puzzle

Break up your team into groups to solve the tricky puzzle and set a time limit. Once they are done, take a moment and discuss how they solved it? What was their strategy? Allowing everyone to speak and share their thoughts could lead to an insightful conversation.

Host A Lunch

Having lunch with your team makes them feel good. All you need to do is take your team to an outside location and have some great conversations. It will strengthen your connection with them and each other, which brings positive energy to work. This is how we connected our team in a few months while working on a digital marketing project at Crowd Writer UK.

Two-Headed Monster

Two-headed monster is a warm-up game that divides the team into pairs and then gives them an object or personality for which each will be telling one related word at a time, like two-headed monsters.

• Step 1: Have your team pair up.

• Step 2: Ask the two members of the same pair to stand next to each other with their hands on each other's shoulders.
• Step 3: Give them a personality, a place, or any object to describe and personify.
• Step 4: They need to talk in one-word turns, building off of each other and keeping the same personality or object going between them.

They can go as long as possible.

This will help to work together and enhance creativity at the same time.

Escape The Room Challenge

If you are out of time and ideas, there is no need to create your own puzzle. Your team could visit a local escape room to look for clues and connections. This is a super exciting game to engage the members and allow them to show their creativity by thinking of various ways to escape.

Conclusion

Gone are the days when fun and activities are assumed to be counterproductive, but now we all are striving to be productive as individuals or team members to get more from the workplace.

Injecting play into your work will foster a positive change, and you will be astonished to see how rapidly the workplace has changed. While the office, which sets fun activities with relaxation and humor, helps to create a social bond and make the team more productive.

About the Author:

Claudia Jeffrey is currently working as an Editor at Crowd Writer UK. She loves to help students cope with their academic challenges and pursue professional careers. Claudia often blogs at Word Count Jet, where she shares her experience and knowledge with her readers. In her leisure time, she tries new recipes.