Bob Nelson, author of the multimillion-copy bestseller 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, and human performance expert Mario Tamayo offer hundreds of practical, creative tips for helping employees—and their managers—make work more fun. According to the employees that work for firms listed in Fortune's “100 Best Companies to Work for in America,” the most defining characteristic of these organizationsis they are all “fun” places to work. Fun is the secret sauce every business needs to better engage and motivate its employees today. Work Made Fun Gets Done! gives readers simple, practical ideas for instantly bringing fun into their work and workplace. Based on examples from scores of companies like Zoom, Pinterest, Bank of America, Zappos, Honda, Microsoft, and many more, this book provides clear examples of exactly what managers and employees alike can do to lighten the tone in the work environment and allow employees to have more fun at work. From AAA's “Dump a Dog” program where workers can pass their least-wanted project on to their manager and Houzz's complimentary office slippers to CARFAX's themed-wardrobe Zoom meetings and Google's company-approved Nerf-gun battles and paper airplane contests, you'll find dozens of ideas you can immediately adapt and implement in your own workplace. Work and fun have typically been considered polar opposites, but this book proves they can be integrated in ways that produce more motivated workers—and exceptional results.

Bob Nelson, author of the multimillion-copy bestseller 1001 Ways to Reward Employees, and human performance expert Mario Tamayo offer hundreds of practical, creative tips for helping employees—and their managers—make work more fun. According to the employees that work for firms listed in Fortune's “100 Best Companies to Work for in America,” the most defining characteristic of these organizations is they are all “fun” places to work. Fun is the secret sauce every business needs to better engage and motivate its employees today. Work Made Fun Gets Done! gives readers simple, practical ideas for instantly bringing fun into their work and workplace. Based on examples from scores of companies like Zoom, Pinterest, Bank of America, Zappos, Honda, Microsoft, and many more, this book provides clear examples of exactly what managers and employees alike can do to lighten the tone in the work environment and allow employees to have more fun at work. From AAA's “Dump a Dog” program where workers can pass their least-wanted project on to their manager and Houzz's complimentary office slippers to CARFAX's themed-wardrobe Zoom meetings and Google's company-approved Nerf-gun battles and paper airplane contests, you'll find dozens of ideas you can immediately adapt and implement in your own workplace. Work and fun have typically been considered polar opposites, but this book proves they can be integrated in ways that produce more motivated workers—and exceptional results.

This text offers a complete resource anyone can use to create a dynamic workplace that encourages and inspires fun-and-games camaraderie among employees. It provides practical hands-on tools and features hundreds of ideas real companies have used to lighten up the workplace.

Imagine a company where people love coming to work and are highly productive on a daily basis. Imagine a company whose top executives, in a quest to create the most "fun" workplace ever, obliterate labor-management divisions and push decision-making responsibility down to the plant floor. Could such a company compete in today's bottom-line corporate world? Could it even turn a profit? Well, imagine no more. In Joy at Work, Dennis W. Bakke tells the true story of this extraordinary company--and how, as its co-founder and longtime CEO, he challenged the business establishment with revolutionary ideas that could remake America's organizations. It is the story of AES, whose business model and operating ethos -"let's have fun"-were conceived during a 90-minute car ride from Annapolis, Maryland, to Washington, D.C. In the next two decades, it became a worldwide energy giant with 40,000 employees in 31 countries and revenues of $8.6 billion. It's a remarkable tale told by a remarkable man: Bakke, a farm boy who was shaped by his religious faith, his years at Harvard Business School, and his experience working for the Federal Energy Administration. He rejects workplace drudgery as a noxious remnant of the Industrial Revolution. He believes work should be fun, and at AES he set out to prove it could be. Bakke sought not the empty "fun" of the Friday beer blast but the joy of a workplace where every person, from custodian to CEO, has the power to use his or her God-given talents free of needless corporate bureaucracy. In Joy at Work, Bakke tells how he helped create a company where every decision made at the top was lamented as a lost chance to delegate responsibility--and where all employees were encouraged to take the "game-winning shot," even when it wasn't a slam-dunk. Perhaps Bakke's most radical stand was his struggle to break the stranglehold of "creating shareholder value" on the corporate mind-set and replace it with more timeless values: integrity, fairness, social responsibility, and a sense of fun.

After a decade of industry-wide downsizing, companies are finding poor morale to be a serious problem. This book presents a step-by-step programme for building an enthusiastic, high-performance team

From the creator of the popular website Ask a Manager and New York’s work-advice columnist comes a witty, practical guide to 200 difficult professional conversations—featuring all-new advice! There’s a reason Alison Green has been called “the Dear Abby of the work world.” Ten years as a workplace-advice columnist have taught her that people avoid awkward conversations in the office because they simply don’t know what to say. Thankfully, Green does—and in this incredibly helpful book, she tackles the tough discussions you may need to have during your career. You’ll learn what to say when • coworkers push their work on you—then take credit for it • you accidentally trash-talk someone in an email then hit “reply all” • you’re being micromanaged—or not being managed at all • you catch a colleague in a lie • your boss seems unhappy with your work • your cubemate’s loud speakerphone is making you homicidal • you got drunk at the holiday party Praise for Ask a Manager “A must-read for anyone who works . . . [Alison Green’s] advice boils down to the idea that you should be professional (even when others are not) and that communicating in a straightforward manner with candor and kindness will get you far, no matter where you work.”—Booklist (starred review) “The author’s friendly, warm, no-nonsense writing is a pleasure to read, and her advice can be widely applied to relationships in all areas of readers’ lives. Ideal for anyone new to the job market or new to management, or anyone hoping to improve their work experience.”—Library Journal (starred review) “I am a huge fan of Alison Green’s Ask a Manager column. This book is even better. It teaches us how to deal with many of the most vexing big and little problems in our workplaces—and to do so with grace, confidence, and a sense of humor.”—Robert Sutton, Stanford professor and author of The No Asshole Rule and The Asshole Survival Guide “Ask a Manager is the ultimate playbook for navigating the traditional workforce in a diplomatic but firm way.”—Erin Lowry, author of Broke Millennial: Stop Scraping By and Get Your Financial Life Together

The classic guide to working from home and why we should embrace a virtual office, from the bestselling authors of Rework “A paradigm-smashing, compulsively readable case for a radically remote workplace.”—Susan Cain, New York Times bestselling author of Quiet Does working from home—or anywhere else but the office—make sense? In Remote, Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson, the founders of Basecamp, bring new insight to the hotly debated argument. While providing a complete overview of remote work’s challenges, Jason and David persuasively argue that, often, the advantages of working “off-site” far outweigh the drawbacks. In the past decade, the “under one roof” model of conducting work has been steadily declining, owing to technology that is rapidly creating virtual workspaces. Today the new paradigm is “move work to the workers, rather than workers to the workplace.” Companies see advantages in the way remote work increases their talent pool, reduces turnover, lessens their real estate footprint, and improves their ability to conduct business across multiple time zones. But what about the workers? Jason and David point out that remote work means working at the best job (not just one that is nearby) and achieving a harmonious work-life balance while increasing productivity. And those are just some of the perks to be gained from leaving the office behind. Remote reveals a multitude of other benefits, along with in-the-trenches tips for easing your way out of the office door where you control how your workday will unfold. Whether you’re a manager fretting over how to manage workers who “want out” or a worker who wants to achieve a lifestyle upgrade while still being a top performer professionally, this book is your indispensable guide.