Sense of Humour and Work Culture: A study based in the luxury hotels in Bangalore, India

Resumo

Employee well-being has been a focus area for Human Resource managers as well as top management alike. The belief that healthy, happy employees would be more effcient, and consequently contribute more, has verily driven the research to understand the implications of different aspects of an employee's health and happiness. Based on the work of key humour researcher Dr. Paul McGhee, it has been established that humour does play a key role in ensuring a happy and healthy workforce. The current study attempts to evaluate the benefits of the use of humour at the workplace, primarily in terms of influencing the work culture. The data for the study has been collected from the hotel sector and has been analysed to understand the use of humour and its influence on the work culture. The findings suggest that the presence and use of humour has a strong positive impact on work culture. The researchers also found that, contrary to previous literature, the use of humour did not depend on demographic variables like age, tenure in the current organization or total work experience. Furthermore, the study also attempts to understand how the use of humour would impact the work culture. In this regard, the researchers found that certain dimensions of humour at the workplace, had a stronger impact on the culture and it is expected that the findings would guide the behaviour of leaders and managers in the creation of a mutually beneficial workplace.