It’s not that long ago that in school classrooms you’d be told to wipe that smile off your face, stop grinning, or even you boy – this isn’t the place to be having fun!….or maybe that’s just my personal school experience?
The point, is that for what seems like an eternity, it’s been frowned upon to mix learning with fun. That doesn’t work for us at Learning & Design.
Most of us have probably learnt by now that if you do laugh and have fun while you’re learning something, it actually helps, but still we sometimes seem reluctant to do it. Learning something new should be exciting. It should feel great to grow your brain power and build on your skills and experiences. The issue is that sometimes it feels like someone didn’t share that memo with the trainer, or the person who wrote the training materials.
What we do is make sure that training, regardless of content, has elements that encourage fun (not silliness), but fun so the learner can quite simply get back to enjoying doing something new.
What do the scientists say?
So we checked with the clever people in white coats and their research shows that fun, in whichever form, has a really positive effect on motivation levels, which then affects what we go onto learn and how much of that information we retain. They also told us something we already knew. Learning cannot be a one-time thing, it needs to be given regular time, a little love and affection so it makes you grow and develop constantly.
Everyone loves a good stat, right?
To help prove our case that learning needs to be fun, check out a few stats from the interweb.
A study in College Teaching, found that students could remember statistics more easily when the lecturer had added in some jokes about the teaching topics.
A neurologist, Judy Willis, was able to show that fun experiences increase our levels of oxygen, endorphins and dopamine. The good news? All those chemicals help you learn.
In a study from the Journal of Vocational Behaviour, it was discovered that your teams are more likely to have a go at learning new things if the work environment they’re in is fun and relaxed.
Research, by Dr Laura Kubansky has demonstrated that fun is actually good for your health, so learning made fun is also helping your health too!
Okay, okay, so how can you incorporate fun into work?
Musical Staircases..?
Car manufacturer, VW, turned a staircase into a giant functioning piano keyboard as part of their fun theory tests. They found that 66% more people than normal climbed those stairs and learnt basic notes as they did it.
DRPG – The Card Game
To train hundreds of people on Client Management can be really dull. We designed a multi-player scenario card game for this communications agency that allowed playful tongue in cheek learning that built knowledge, shared experiences and was intuitive enough for anyone to pick up and have a go. It even got used in 121’s and interviews.
LinkedIn – Walking & Talking
LinkedIn tried walk & talks where the team can take a stroll to catch up or have meetings. They found it was a great way to incorporate some exercise into the day and comes with the added bonus of releasing fun inducing endorphins which are said to reduce stress, make people happier and even improve health.
What about getting fun into learning?
We find this one easy. We all like to laugh. Even the most serious person enjoys a smile from time to time. The good news about that fact? The evidence shows that when your team is happy they are also likely to be more by productive by up to 12%. So try making jokes, introducing humour and seeing the funny side during training and you might find it can help make people work harder – who knew?
If people love to learn, they grow.
If you have happy productive people, who love learning then they’re going to grow. When your people grow the performance and capability does too allowing you to start growing people for the future and building strength in your business.
Happy people take less time off work!
Research shows that when there is fun happening at work, and people take part and engage it leads to less time off, less people leaving. When you think about how much learning can costs a company especially for a new starter this is surely a no brainer?
Building Resilience
Now this one got us thinking! Having a good belly laugh at work can lower stress and boost your immunity. In fact, if we have a good laugh we can relax our muscles for over 30 minutes! Encouraging a environment where laughing is commonplace could help your teams bounce back from hurdles a little more quickly.
Playtime
We know that you’ll remember how exciting playtime felt at school, it was the chance to throw off the rules and just play and let your mind be free. When you incorporate something similar at work people are way more likely to have new ideas, be creative, think outside the box. Try to look at how you ask for ideas an input now and then try to do it differently. Have treats. Go outside. Watch some YouTube clips. Make it fun and see what different results you might get.