Hey, it's Rachel Cook, your modern mentor. And if you, like many, are feeling stuck in a moment of all work and no play, then today's episode is for you. We're going to talk about ways you can infuse fun back into the business of doing work. Remember the water cooler and how it felt to just bump into someone and chat about

Netflix or your kids baseball game with no agenda? And remember when everyone wore pants?

In the wise words of Joni Mitchell, sometimes you don't know what you've got till it's gone.

Working physically in an office came at a price, for sure. It wasn't all fun and games. But for many of us,

that fun and games part is feeling absent. We're working longer days and weekends. We're feeling the

burn and we're missing a sense of fun. The pandemic may have changed the rules on what fun can

look like right now, but there is still

fun to be had. With or without a budget, there are ways you can start to bring it back into your

workplace. I recently ran a series of listening sessions for a client, trying to understand what

their employees want as far as fun in 21, and I learned some pretty great stuff I'm going to pass along today.

First, fun begins with everyone being okay. When the pandemic began, a lot of companies started

trying to mandate fun by instituting weekly Zoom happy hours, awkward virtual team-building events,

and more. But the truth is, it's hard to lean into the pleasure of a happy hour

when your brain is swimming in anxiety and overwhelm.

It's like putting lipstick on a pig, with all due respect to the pig.

These listening sessions taught me that teams are tired of feeling forced to laugh

when they still feel like crying.

True fun begins with a foundation of everyone just being okay, having what they need as far as tools, resources, support,

access to key benefits, etc. Whether or not you're in a position of leadership, if you're

looking to re-infuse a sense of fun back into your team, start by just

checking in with people one-on-one, and maybe experiment with questions that invoke something deeper

than, hey, how are you? Here are some I've been asked that I've really appreciated.

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