The look of Larry Jordan’s office building is evocative enough, with a country-style façade featuring a porch, rocking chairs and a swing, Z-patterned board-and-batten shutters, and a couple of ceiling fans. But inside is a more powerful setting, a place where employees can detach from the daily pressures of work, “kick back and let the sounds of the jungle open the mind,” as a placard explains the intention of the Jungle Room.
Gauzy curtains mark the entrance to the room, which has an African mask on the wall, a leopard-spotted cushion in the corner and a mural showing a “never-ending path” lined with palm trees leading from a jungle to faraway hills on the horizon.
The room is a “risky, colorful, exciting space freeing us to discover new thoughts and ideas,” the philosophy goes, although Jordan’s paperwork has trickled onto the desk, couch and floor, meaning use of the Jungle Room is on hiatus while it serves as an adjunct workspace.
“We’re shifting some offices around,” says Jordan, founder of homebuilder Jordan Traditions on Brookline Avenue. When fully operational, the space presents workers with a place in which to read, listen to music or gaze at that path and brainstorm—an unusual, stress-free environment.
“It’s not a think tank,” Jordan says. “But the idea is exploring unknown territory. Folks are encouraged to not sit at their desk when they’re tired, but to get up and explore new thoughts, ‘to think outside the box,’ although that’s overused.”
There are companies that practically wring their employees dry. After all, some business owners figure, most people are lucky to even have a job. Workers would do better to quit complaining and focus on keeping their paychecks by doubling down. Hence a jobless recovery with increased productivity at the expense of a truly robust, dependable economy.
And then there is Lamar Advertising Company, where employees “try to find any reason to celebrate everything,” says Tommy Teepell, chief marketing officer. “For the most part, we’ve been together 25 years, through four good recessions. You gotta reach real deep into your bag of clubs when times get serious. And when times are good, we celebrate.”
Lamar extols the virtues of relieving workplace stress and inspiring a familial atmosphere as ways to boost productivity and loyalty, Teepell says.
In this fairly button-down working city, he says visitors to the agency’s Corporate Boulevard headquarters are surprised to encounter a raucous place of business that features Nintendo Wii tennis tournaments for charity or entire departments leaving early for a movie.
“You never know when fun’s going to break out,” Teepell says. “You hear people laughing and hooting in the hallways. People say it’s almost like a frat house. When you have spontaneous celebrations, then there’s a little bit of mystery and excitement when you come to work. You just don’t typically expect that to happen in any corporate office.”
Stress is bad, most people agree. A tense work environment can signify high attention to process and detail, but it can be psychologically draining to endure day in, day out. An ever-anxious workplace can lead to job burnout and, in the long run, health problems.
A survey by Kelton Research and workplace productivity firm Cornerstone OnDemand says three in five respondents want to feel more appreciated in order to stay in their current positions, while two in three say they don’t receive useful supervisor feedback to give real meaning to their efforts.
Meantime, a study from the University of Rochester [N.Y.] Medical Center says stress on the job compounds bad eating habits by pushing strained workers to vegetate at home afterward instead of burning calories, which leads to cardiovascular disease.
More dire, the Canadian Mental Health Association warns that pressure to perform can lead to “a downward spiral of increasing effort to meet rising expectations with no increase in job satisfaction,” which ultimately feeds inefficiency, hasty decision-making, petty office politics and, most frightfully, death.
How to ward that off?
Several companies in Baton Rouge have strategies for easing the burden of the workload. The Newtron Group, a commercial construction firm, has had an in-house health club at its West El Cajon Drive headquarters since the mid-1980s.
Weekly cardio, strength and toning, and yoga workouts are offered free to employees, who also have a standing opportunity to hop on elliptical or weight machines on the second floor of the space. There, a window looks onto a racquetball court that doubles as the classroom space.
After showing a little interest in the idea, Melissa Harris, an administrative assistant, wound up coordinating the classes. “Being a working mom of two small kids, I didn’t have the time to do it outside of work,” she says. “It gives me the time and the opportunity. It keeps me going.”
The firm prides itself on offering the gym as a way to ease the pressures of the mind and nurture the temple of the soul, thereby maintaining morale and improving efficiency.
“We have very little turnover here,” Business Development Manager David Funes says, adding that “lots of people take time in the middle of the workday” to use the workout facility.
He says president and founder Newton Thomas has a philosophy of taking care of his employees, one of Newtron Group’s “core values” that the company strives to maintain by conducting an annual survey to make sure workers are satisfied and motivated. The firm even has several Grand Isle campsites of which field employees have priority over management. “It was designed for regular employees,” Funes says.
LeAnne Weill, president of The Weill Agency, says her Perkins Road advertising firm emphasizes “unusual or fun things” in the course of the day to keep the mood light, including ordering novelties from the Archie McPhee catalog. The options include devil rubber duckies, bacon-imprinted bandages and absinthe lip balm.
“Everybody has a place for their toothbrush,” Weill says of the firm. “One particular employee requested a slipper policy. She was allowed to wear slippers. We used to play Nerf ping-pong on the conference room table. That got a little out of control. We put a moratorium on that.”
Thanks to one employee who had to put in extra hours on a special project, a unique reward was implementing office feng shui, involving an expert-led session where “everyone becomes some kind of element—wood, water, fire,” Weill says. “Sometimes you just gotta blow off a little steam. We try to laugh a lot. We try to have as much fun as possible without disrupting the workflow.”
Not to mention maintaining optimal qi energy flow.
Stephen St. Cyr, president of Vivid Ink Graphics on Cloverland Court, says his company’s strict-deadline environment requires extra effort to maintain morale. “It is very hectic here,” he says. “The knowledge that you could screw up and not know if someone’s going to yell at you. … There are times you need to get up and take a walk.”
Formally, the company meets monthly and selects an employee of the month after receiving nominations and hearing testimony from coworkers. Ideas from a suggestion box are read aloud and approved or disapproved. Then there is a springtime crawfish boil that involves plane rides with St. Cyr’s daughter, who is a licensed pilot.
“We have a ping-pong table here, but we stay too busy to ever use it,” St. Cyr says. “It’s just too much going on.” He says business is booming right now, and he knows that can take a toll on the mood, but there is only so much relief he can offer.
“We all know that this is not sustainable, but we can’t get more printers in here,” he says. “There’s lots of overtime right now. There’s a lot of stress in this business, but we do a very good job at managing it. I wouldn’t say we do a great job of eliminating it.”
Holidays and big-deal sporting events are prime time for workplace fun at Lamar. Teepell says John Miller, vice president and director of national sales, will grill hamburgers in the kitchen for Labor Day or Memorial Day, while COO Sean Reilly cooks gumbo the day before Thanksgiving.
“Anytime LSU gets in the playoffs or anything, usually basketball or baseball, we put ’em on the big screen downstairs, and there’s food and drinks down there,” Teepell says. “When you go down to get a cup of coffee or a nibble, you can catch up on the score.
“We spend 40 to 50 hours a week together. When you look at that compared with how much awake time you have outside of work, that’s a big percentage of your life. If you can’t enjoy your work atmosphere, then what’s the purpose? Whatever wisdom anyone has around here, it comes from shared experience.
“If you live and work in a business long enough, you realize it’s important for people to find joy in their work, and for people to be able to find joy in the people they work with. Monday in the office should be better than a Saturday. As long as people are moving toward goals, work can be fun.”
