New research encourages a bit of a ‘craic’ in the workplace

Humour in the Northern Ireland workplace actually helps to ease religious and political tensions, according to leading research by Edge Hill University.

Opening Pandora's Box - Workplace Community Relations Strategies in Northern Ireland is a pioneering study that has just been carried out by the University and the findings could be used to improve relationships between Protestant and Catholic employees.

Dr Gary Brown, the University's Business and Management Studies Programme Leader, was given a brief to examine workplace community relations policy in three District Councils in Northern Ireland to see whether their strategies actually enhanced or hindered the religious divide.

He explained: "The workplace is the perfect environment to encourage community cohesion because Catholics and Protestants have the opportunity to work together, often for the first time. They have to come together and so it's a good opportunity to get them talking to each other and drive changes in attitudes to improve relations between the two groups."

When interviewing employees, he found that pragmatic humour was a common way of coping with issues and widely used as an informal survival strategy for managing differences. He found that cracking jokes in the workplace helped employees  to maintain cohesion, relieve frustrations, and provide an effective ‘escape route' when introducing contentious subjects.

Dr Brown explained: "Humour is an informal strategy used by employees not only to break the monotony of the working day, but also to help them cope with workplace community relations issues at work. Humour can ‘oil the wheels' and help keep open channels of communications about work issues when policy mechanisms stifle discussion of such subjects. Lampooning and self-depreciation helped maintain social cohesion and reduced tension when problems emerged. So in settings where employees would feel frustration and would normally close off from one another, they would find solace in political and religious humour because they found a bit of a ‘craic' would give them release. Yet its value and purpose was often misunderstood, and undermined by managers and, in some cases, employees would be reprimanded or disciplined for their remarks."

"This research appears to reveal areas of weakness in existing policy initiatives and contradicts what management are trying to do to improve relations, which I believe need to be looked at in order to improve community cohesion.

"Based on this evidence, I would argue that the value of humour for relationship building efforts should be reflected in workplace policy initiatives rather than ignored. I believe workplace policies that devalue the importance of humour should be re-visited and changed in light of this research."

As a result of this research, a Community, Identity and Organisation Research Group has been set up, which was founded by Dr Brown and Dr Frank Worthington from the University of Liverpool's Management School.