What If Work Was Actually Fun?

Hello Monday with Jessi Hempel

Careers, Business

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 July 2025

⏱️ 33 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Most of us spend the majority of our lives at work — but how often do we pause to ask whether our days are actually fun? In this episode of Hello Monday, host Jessi Hempel sits down with Bree Groff, a senior advisor at SYPartners and author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously), to talk about how fun, mischief, and human connection can radically improve our work lives. Bree’s work centers around workplace transformation and employee experience. She’s advised companies like Google, Microsoft, Pfizer, and Calvin Klein on how to build work cultures where people thrive. And her approach is surprisingly joyful. Jessi and Bree unpack: Why fun belongs at the center of great workplace culture How professionalism can strip us of our humanity — and how to get it back The emotional toll of over-identifying with our jobs How “Do Nothing Days” unlock creativity and innovation The radical power of micro-mischief and music in the workplace Friendship at work and why it matters more than we think This episode is for anyone feeling worn down by workplace norms or wondering if work has to feel so serious. Bree offers fresh, practical strategies to build a work life that’s more joyful, more connected, and yes, more productive. Continue the conversation with us at Hello Monday Office Hours! Join us this Wednesday at 3 PM ET on the LinkedIn News page.

Transcript

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0:00.0	We sometimes forget that we are more than our economic output, that our days are more than the input to some company's bottom line.
0:17.6	We want employee experience to be good and our scores to be high because it fuels
0:23.4	performance. That employee experience, like that should be good because that's also how we're
0:28.4	spending our lives. From the news team at LinkedIn, I'm Jesse Hempel and this is Hello Monday.
0:36.7	It's our show about the changing
0:38.3	nature of work and how that work is changing all of us. So in the television show The Office,
0:46.1	it's iconic. I'm sure you've watched it. One of my favorite relationships is the one between
0:51.2	Jim and Dwight. Like for example, the time that Jim, he had left the company already,
0:55.7	but when he left, he took a bunch of Dwight stationary with him.
0:59.0	And he would fax Dwight these messages from future Dwight.
1:03.8	They'd say things like, at 8 a.m., the coffee will be poisoned.
1:08.4	And you know, Dwight, hilarity would ensue.
1:10.8	It was so much fun to watch, and it drove home why we love coffee will be poisoned. And you know Dwight, hilarity would ensue.
1:10.9	It was so much fun to watch and it drove home why we loved the office so much.
1:16.9	Why the people at the office loved the office so much.
1:20.8	It wasn't the making paper or the selling paper.
1:24.1	It was the people.
1:25.3	The way they showed up for each other and with each other, the way they were in community with each other.
1:32.1	That's what makes any work environment great.
1:36.1	Now, today's episode is about just that.
1:38.8	Our guest is Breed Groff.
1:40.8	Her book is called Today Was Fun, a book about work, seriously. Brie is a senior advisor
	...

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