Support play by offering choices, modeling curiosity, and protecting time for small experiments instead of requiring everyone to join a game. When your team is busy or mixed in its comfort with visibility, voluntary options make connection feel useful rather than performative.
What can play look like at work?
Play is a mindset people bring to work, not a scheduled activity everyone must enjoy. At its heart, Make Their Day turns ordinary interactions into meaningful moments by showing that people’s efforts, choices, and presence matter. A manager might thank an analyst for testing a clearer report format, ask a quiet colleague how they prefer to contribute, or leave room for a team to solve a handoff problem in a new way. The gesture works because it is specific and sincere, not because it is public or entertaining.
The other practices keep that invitation grounded: Be There means noticing how people respond, Choose Your Attitude means modeling openness when an idea needs revision, and Play can look like curiosity, humor, or careful trial and error.
How can you make it voluntary and useful?
Start with a short team conversation: “What helps you think, connect, or reset during a demanding week?” Use the answers to offer a small menu, such as a five-minute idea swap, optional peer recognition, a different meeting format, or protected time to test a workflow improvement. Set the boundaries clearly, then ask what the team learned rather than judging the first attempt. If someone prefers not to join a visible activity, let a quiet contribution count.
Your practical test is simple: after an experiment or gesture, ask whether it helped someone feel valued, supported, or more able to do good work. Keep what serves the team, adjust what does not, and let participation remain a choice.
Questions like this one, and many more about employee wellbeing, are explored in the FISH! Philosophy upgraded trial, which gives your team 30 days of access to the FISH! film and its digital guides.
