humor breaks should happen every hour of the day, ideally, in the workplace. So what humor in the workplace also does is connect us to one another. We don't have to have a similar sense of humor. We just have to know that people are willing to try humor, or to have a little bit of recess time,
deadlines, workload, stress, burnout, why does work have to be so serious? This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Our guest today says that work shouldn't be so serious, at least not all the time. And that a little joking around is not only okay in the workplace, but scientific studies show that it's often beneficial for productivity and for employee retention.
Hi, I'm Jennifer Kee. I am the current president for the Association for applied and therapeutic humor. And I work part time in the continuing education department for Heartland.
Tell me a little bit about the Association for applied in therapeutic humor. I didn't know this was a thing. What is the organization? And what do you do there?
Sure, we are a international organization. It's a nonprofit that focuses on the marriage between the research behind all of the studies of the brain and humor as well as those who use it in application. So we have people in our organization that have been physicians and nurses and educators and laughter yoga instructors and professional clowns and sign up comedians. So people that use humor, effectively, people that just like humor, and have really found the benefits of humor both on the mental and physical parts of our bodies. And so to marry them together in this organization, we have a lot of fun together. But we also learn a lot and are able to bring that back into our daily lives and the people that we serve.
Well now if one is interested in this topic, but not necessarily somebody that is, as you say, a professional comedian, or a cloud, what do you learn? Are there techniques you learn? Is it something where you go through classes and and get a certificate in being a humor professional? How does that work?
We do we are welcome to everyone who just have a little bit of use your in my daily life. But I didn't know what actually did something like I as a teacher, I was a high school English teacher for 20 years, I knew humor affected how I did with my students how I connected with them the report I had, I knew that I saw other people who also had the similar sense of humor as I did. But I didn't know that. Okay, the brain actually lights up in great ways when we use humor and actually relieves stress. So we have kind of a research track with our organization as well as we have an application track. So if you're somebody that just wants to learn the basics, that's very generally touched on an organization, as well as we do have a three year humor Academy program that you can go through and study year round for three years and become a certified humor professional.
If somebody is not funny, naturally, if they go through this academy, will they be funny or at least understand where to apply humor? By the time absolutely done with it?
Absolutely. I don't expect that this will make you a stand up comedian. For sure. That's not the training that we provide. But what we do is teach you how to see funny how to take things that are funny for each person. Because although humor is universal, that everyone finds something funny, what we find funny is subjective. So I might love a good pun, and I might groan at a dad joke, we might be completely opposite. And yet we can still find something that is for us. So we teach more how you can see the funny how you can find the funny how you can get to those things for all of the people that we serve individually.
So what are some situations where injecting humor can be beneficial for the workplace? What are situations where you will see a benefit?
Sure. Well at the workplace, we find that humor actually doubles productivity. And it seems strange because play is all recess what we did in elementary school, it's not what we would do in our real adult jobs. But if we don't take those breaks, we get burnt out very easily. A lot of people take and save up their vacation time, two weeks in a summer and then they go 100% vacation. We find that people come back from vacation to get a break, vacation to go back to work to get a break from their vacations because we save it up. When we take a little bit at a time and we take those brain breaks we come back more productive. It's like getting our traditional eight hours of sleep a night to recharge those batteries. Those humor breaks should happen every hour of the day ideal In the workplace, so what humor in the workplace also does is connect us to one another, we don't have to have a similar sense of humor, we just have to know that people are willing to try humor, or to have a little bit of recess time. Even as adults, that's the number one thing that teenagers say they miss, when they get to high school, or my nap time, where's my recess time, because what recess is, is just play. And we just don't, that's why adult coloring books are so popular, and zen gardens and all of these things, because we just get a chance to play and you know, even Candy Crush and things like that on our phones are there to kind of give us an opportunity to play video games are still wildly popular, it's an opportunity for us to explore, have free time and take that. So something like the office is more popular today than it was when it was on the air in 2012. And it's because during the last two years, people were searching for something that brought them comfort, something that they could count on, and something that caused them a chance to laugh. So the office was the 57 billion minutes of the office was streamed in 2020. That's crazy. And yet, that's just more indication that we now more than ever, are seeking humor and a way to relieve that stress in healthy ways, which is what humor can do?
Well, you mentioned the TV show The Office that kind of leads into something that I wanted to ask about. So the boss in the office, or at least for the first several seasons of The Office is played by Steve Carell, and he thinks he's hilarious. He thinks he's a really funny guy. And he thinks everybody thinks he's funny. And he's often cringy and does things that are completely inappropriate. And we can laugh at that and see that. But how do you deal with people, as you say, humor is subjective and humor can get into some inappropriate areas? How do you make sure that when you're injecting humor into the workplace, it's not an opportunity for somebody to create a problem that needs to be referred to HR?
Oh, absolutely. It's a great question. Because humor in our therapeutic version is all healthy. It's intended to connect people together, and never against someone else. Humor as we look at it is inclusive. It is never exclusive. Steve Carell is Michael Scott is exclusive, he hopes one day to be on the inside joke, but he is always on the outside, he is thinking he's part of the joke and actually creating those cringy moments. So we definitely want to make sure our audience is with us from the beginning. So a great tip is to test those waters with a small group of people that you know, outside of the workplace, or in little bits of outside of the only professional setting, maybe you spent and had one lunch with them. So you can test a joke here or there. But really just remembering that the audience is most important. Absolutely most important, I have to know who I'm speaking to, I have to know that what I'm going to say is going to be received properly, because intention is absolutely part of it. But I'm also responsible as the humor provider for some of the impact.
Try out your material beforehand, a little bit,
it's a it's a good thing to test, and also to do something that's really low risk. And so low risk is when it's not personal. And it's where we all kind of have a similar viewpoint about the same thing. So hot button topics are not where you would start to a humor test, for sure. And and then if you do end up finding something that doesn't work, then it's your responsibility to say I attempted something it did not go well. And then adjust the next plan. And I think even well, tested comedians have figured this out. And based on how one joke lands or one attempt at humor does not, then we're just switching up how we do things. You know, a perfect example is Chris Rock may adjust things that he does moving forward. It says thing to decide. But it definitely was not what he thought and impact would be with his humor.
Yeah, next time. Can Mike duck that would be a good adjustment. What can somebody do? What's a good example of a way to introduce some levity and some of that spirit of play or something into the workplace, say you're a manager, you're looking for opportunities, you're looking to pick your spots? What are some easy footholds you can get into doing that?
My friend Drew Tarvin, wrote a book 501 ways to infuse humor into the workplace and there's silly little things and, and some of them are just adding a little meme to an email that would be about something that's related to the office but what you want to do with that is create that universal space, so that we're not making fun of any project. Killer thing or even taking on something like a pop culture reference that some people in the office may not know you have may have an office that has a lot of generational differences, you may have gender differences. You also don't know everybody's senses of humor when you're attempting that for the first time. So the safest places are plays on words, or things that we think are very universal cartoons from our childhood, things like that. I'm going to share those in a low risk situation, and then see how those go, and then maybe step it up where it's a little bit more about the things that we share in common because that's what humor is supposed to do. I have teachers at a school that I am technology person for who puts a pun on the board every day, by the end of the day, the kids are asking each other what was the pun for today? What was the joke? What's that? You know, they're looking forward to it. And we know that humor is coming. It relieves 39% of our stress, just knowing that something's coming. When we hear somebody say to us, Hey, I got a joke for you. And they've been funny. In the past, we expect funny. So we've already like, Okay, this is gonna be good. But if it's someone who's been cringy in the past, or like, I've got a joke for you like, nope, nevermind, you know, you're already ready to nip that in the bud. So part of that is establishing your rapport with humor, and with the people that you're presenting that to. So low risk is going to be sharing something that other people have done, maybe not trying your own jokes right at the beginning, but sharing something that has had success other places, in an email on a board on a very low risk very general, and not specific to anything recent in pop culture.
Is there ever any worry if you are sort of the humor cheerleader or the humor coach, and you are in a supervisory position, that you're worried that you might be not viewed in the same light, or maybe that people will take their work less seriously, that is a chink in your professional demeanor.
That's something that we have been fighting a lot in the continuing ed department at Heartland because there are a lot of times looked as soft skills, your communication skills, your humor skills, you know, those kinds of things, I can tell you during COVID Start and continuing that those things are even more evident as being necessary for our workplaces, for our home lives, for our relationships with one another. Because there are ways we can use them to connect Absolutely, there's a concern from administration and management that says, well, they won't look at me the same. And that's kind of why our motto at a th is we're serious about humor, you can be both. In fact, you have, you know, the idea of professional companies that have played places built into them, they're effectively knowing their people and knowing that, that they have to support them in all areas of their wellness. And so knowing that I get to go to work, rather than have to go to work is the mindset we want for our employees, we want them to know, hey, you know, things are gonna happen in your life. And I'm approachable. And if I'm approachable, I'm going to keep those employees and that's number one right now. And we're we're dealing with with the great resignation, is just holding on to our people. And we want to hold on to our good people. So we connect with them, we have rapport with them using humor, or whatever is our method, you know, personalities and connection, they're gonna stay. People don't leave jobs because of the work. They leave because of who works there. And we want them to stay for the same reasons.
If you've been involved with this organization, I'm sure that you've had opportunities to apply it. As you've mentioned, what are some great things that you've seen in ways that people have applied humor in the workplace that you think, Oh, that was a great way to do that, or I want to steal that idea.
I'm inspired by the people in our organization, just every day, I just look at the beginning of COVID. And as we were in quarantine, and my situation very different from my sisters, all of my schedule cleared out. My sister worked in retail, her schedule doubled. And so we kind of were embracing how do we still be funny in a time that is so dark, and so dreary, but but at the same time knowing Oh, our people need us more than ever now. We have to lead the way. And so we were taking great we the comments we were seeing on Twitter about homeschooling, and just using those and sharing those as with a wider audience as possible. We're doing the research on what the benefits of a hug are. And then making a little video on how we could do a hug carefully during a COVID type of quarantine, finding ways to engage over zoom because so many people had not we've been using zoom for years and years because we're International. So we have one in person conference a year. And then all of our people scattered back to wherever they're they call home from Norway to Australia to Ethiopia to We're all over America and Canada. And how do we connect? Well, we use Zoom. And so we are then the leading force on here's how you can use Zoom to still engage and connect. And we're doing check ins, temperature checks, and not like literal 98.6. But But where are you at? Where's your humor check today? What have you had, that's funny share with us so we can share with others. And when you share humor, when you're in the same space, and you're sharing that, then it multiplies three or four times as much as much as if I'm at home laughing. But if I'm with other people, I laugh three or four times as much. And so just sharing in that humor is a way that we connect. And so I steal all kinds of things with with credit, but didn't make sure that you know, hey, you use a funny little cartoon, when you have an away message on email, when you do actually take a brain break and take a day off of work. You do leave a funny little Hey, you didn't catch me today, but good for you, because I'm on the beach. So here's a little silly thing about the beat, you know, whatever that is a way to infuse a little bit of humor every step of the way. So with emails at the workplace with a silly sign on your desk with things in the workplace that say this is the funny walk zone. And some people are comfortable with that and some are not. But the more other people become comfortable then you the inhibitions lighten a little bit and we feel like oh, well, okay, it's low risk. I'll try that. And just the way we hold our bodies when they're relaxed, and we feel like we're not going to be judged about how we celebrate life, makes the workplace and our home lives even more enjoyable.
Well, Jennifer, thanks for talking to us about humor in the workplace and some of the work that you've been doing. Excellent. Thank
you so much for having me.
Jennifer Keith is President of the Association for applied and therapeutic humor. She also works in the continuing education department at Heartland Community College as an instructor. If you're interested in other interviews and conversations about work, productivity or other topics, check out our other random acts of knowledge podcasts on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you heard this one. Thanks for listening
