Chief Fun Officer Rebecca Binnendyk explains how to bring more joy into the workplace
Posted Jan 20, 2021 02:26:00 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Many workplaces began 2021 drastically different from how they started 2020. With countless companies working from home, the days of mingling with coworkers at the office might feel like a distant memory.
Despite working at a distance in today's environment, one local CFO advocates for businesses to inject more fun into the workplace, even when the typical office atmosphere looks and feels much different this year.
Rebecca Binnendyk has many titles; musician, voice over artist, educator, but she’s also an atypical CFO, as in “Chief Fun Officer”. She helps businesses and CEO’s realize the benefit of bringing more joy into their workplace. It all starts from the top down.
“Fun is creating a culture where people thrive,” Binnendyk said. “Because businesses are made of individuals, and we really need to acknowledge individualism. Not everybody’s just going to want beer on Friday; we have to listen to our employees and what is going to work specifically for them.”
Her aim is to help create a culture where employees can be themselves. That often begins with senior leaders being open and vulnerable to change and to trying new things. She preaches that workers who don’t feel like they’re having fun at work might not feel engaged, and as a result, employees who aren’t engaged might look for work elsewhere.
Binnendyk noticed a trend of younger workers seeking to quit the corporate world and instead seek fame and fortune by alternate means, like becoming a YouTube sensation. Rather than making such a rash decision, she helps drill down to the root of the issue to improve the overall corporate atmosphere.
The definition of “fun” can mean many things, and it’s unique for every person. What’s crucial is that CEO’s try to learn each interpretation of fun for their most important resource; the people who work for them.
“It’s fun in the workplace to feel safe,” Binnendyk said. “It’s fun in the workplace to have a friend. It’s fun in the workplace to communicate with your leader. It’s fun in the workplace to come in and feel accepted and acknowledged, being heard, all of these things.”
By meeting with CEO’s, stakeholders and managers, Binnendyk takes a deep dive into the corporate culture of businesses and encourages them to challenge the norm, break the rules, and try something new. The end game is to ensure that the people driving the business feel valued, and that will only have a positive impact on the company.
“I would work with a company to help them communicate and recognize in their employees what steps need to be taken to ensure they feel heard, seen, acknowledged and respected,” Binnendyk said.
“In turn as a CEO, what you get is engagement, retention, devotion, commitment, investment from your employees, and of course the big equals sign: higher revenue, growth, innovation and creativity. That’s all going to come out of your employees when they feel this safe, fun environment.”
Keeping employees engaged in a work from home environment for the foreseeable future is a challenge, but as Chief Fun Officer, Binnendyk suggested things like organizing social parties, hosting pet contests, or sending dinner to someone’s door as gestures to keep work light and entertaining during lockdown periods.
Binnendyk not only talks the talk, but she walks the walk. As a musician, she recently performed as the Women’s Executive Network across Canada. As a voice over artist, she’s voicing webinars for the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre. And pre-pandemic, she travelled to third world countries to assist with philanthropy work.
In her mind, all of those things qualify as “fun” for Binnendyk, which she emphasized should be the driving force of everything we do in our lives, both inside and outside the workplace.
“I’ll tell companies: ’Try things, try different stuff.’ And I do the same thing, but it all brings me joy,” Binnendyk said. “To perform again with a band live, it’s fun. To work with the Waterloo Region Small Business Centre, that’s fun. And that’s kind of my motto: If it ain’t fun, move on.”
If the pandemic proved anything, it’s that workplaces — and people in general — should aim to be more adaptable in a hectic environment. Before COVID-19 took hold, Binnendyk planned to uproot from Kitchener to Amsterdam, but with those plans shelved for now, Waterloo Region remains home for her.
“You have to flow like water,” Binnendyk said. “And water doesn’t stop when it hits a rock, it just finds a way around it. And there’s always going to be rocks in the way. It’s what you do with them that will determine the outcome.”
