All work and no play make anyone a dull guy

Recently, one of our admin staff was trying to arrange an outing for the whole place I am working at. Well, response is poor as expected. Why? Because firstly, the Head of the office is not there to lend support, and for my workplace, I seldom see or hear colleagues go out during the weekend or go out for a simple dinner, don’t even say for the whole centre. For my cliché, it is always the common few that go out for dinner together. (Kudos to her for being persistent in arranging outings for all workplace colleagues.)

At my workplace, people cannot wait to get home when the clock shows knock-off time. (Typical of any public sector jobs.) No one wants to stay back to work for even one nano-second to finish their work. They just want to go back home ASAP. Being an employee, of course, I want to go home early but I think a company that has staff not rushing home but strolling or finished what is left then go home is healthier. Workers rushing home goes to show that the workers in the company are there just to earn a living. There is no passion or pride in the work they do.

Once the leash of time has been released, they do not want to stay in this ‘dreadful’ (in their opinion) place. There is no sense of belonging. If this is the case, I think the leaders are not doing right; they should foster a sense of belonging, a sense of identity. But apparently that is not seen in my workplace. People are not proud or want to be seen as part of the workplace, which I think is really very sad, and it is not a good sign if it is seen in a private company. My department/workplace had to find people form teams to compete with other departments but it was so difficult to organize it because firstly, the leader did not rally, only sponsor T-Shirts, and secondly like I mentioned, no sense of belonging. If both condition had been met, I am sure our admin staff would not have difficulty finding ‘volunteers’ to form teams and participate in the competition.

To create a nice workplace, fun and work has to be balanced and to have them both, maybe a sense of identity and belonging should be fostered. How to foster is definitely not easy, but it is definitely a necessary trait that should be seen in good leaders.

Sad to say, my workplace has a very good physical environment, but human environment… shan’t say too much. :)

Cheers!