A Fun Activity Isn’t the Same as Building Morale
by Holly Mandel
I was reading about some recent stats having to do with workplace morale, performance and retention:
21% higher profitability: Companies with highly engaged teams outperform their peers in profitability
41% less absenteeism: Engaged employees are significantly less likely to miss work
87% lower turnover: Highly engaged employees are much less likely to leave their companies
$438 billion lost annually: Globally, disengaged employees cost the economy hundreds of billions in lost productivity
While no one would argue morale is a vital ingredient for the recipe of a successful and resilient company, how to build it and keep it can be harder to figure out. As a business that delivers engaging, fun, and interactive trainings for a living, we understand how easy it is to confuse “fun” for “morale”. A 2-hour fun event may produce a lot of laughter and provide temporary energy, yet it rarely addresses the deeper structural factors that sustain employee engagement and create positive, committed teams.
That’s because morale is so much more than a good time. Morale means more than changing your team’s mood or giving everyone an offsite adventure, even though those types of things can have benefits. Fun lifts the moment. Morale sustains the mission.
Building true morale often requires more than a singular event—it needs ongoing, intentional commitment.
Organizations that succeed are the ones that invest in leadership development, equipping their managers to foster trust, communication, and genuine engagement.
They cultivate cultures of recognition, ensuring employees regularly feel seen and valued. Open and honest communication is prioritized, not just encouraged during special events, but embedded into everyday interactions.
They commit to continuous improvement, regularly assessing and evolving their approach to engagement to meet the needs of their teams.
And finally, they encourage a positive, growth mindset which celebrates strengths, progress and solutions over punitive approaches and hyper-vigilance on problems and errors. Nearly half of employees (47%) cite poor company culture—not the lack of fun activities—as the primary reason they leave organizations.
Don’t get me wrong, we love fun and are all about it! However, fun imbued with the goal of boosting morale is the key. We call it “kale in the brownie” — embedding important experiential learning into the fun and lightheartedness. In fact, it’s the fun and lightheartedness that makes the other components stick. When our energy levels are up and our brains are operating in a positive, creative space, learning tends to go in deeper and last longer.
For us, improv is never used as a gimmick or entertaining distraction. It’s a strategic, powerful, experiential tool to help businesses build cultures where morale naturally flourishes. Our programs are designed to foster psychological safety, empowering team members to speak up, listen, and collaborate more effectively. Through improvisational exercises, employees become more adaptable, learning to think on their feet and welcome change with curiosity rather than fear. Our training also strengthens leadership skills, giving managers the tools to sustain engagement over time. By encouraging a ‘yes, and’ mindset and embedding continuous learning into daily behaviors, improv becomes a powerful vehicle for real, lasting change.
With a multidimensional tool like improv, companies can move beyond short-lived boosts of energy or and instead invest in the kind of transformational engagement that leads to higher performance, greater retention, and a truly energized workforce.