THE INSIDER: He who laughs last, works longest
The increasing fascination with happiness at work ranges from Google’s playground slides to vodka shots at Zappos
In their quest to make employees happier, companies around the world have been busy installing play equipment in the workplace. Author André Spicer, whose book The Wellness Syndrome, co-written by Carl Cederström, analyses "the increasing fascination with happiness at work", points out that Google has set up slides in its Zurich office so engineers can whizz between floors. The online shoe retailer Zappos encourages employees to dress as their favourite animal on certain days. There are US companies that give staff an opportunity to be ninjas for the day. Fussball tables, computer games, action figures and scooters have become fixtures in some workplaces. And if you walked into the offices of Inventionland, you could be mistaken for assuming you were in a children’s playground: workspaces there include a fake pirate ship, a tree house, and a giant shoe.
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