Horseplay Meaning
Horseplay is rough or boisterous & excessive play or pranks that occur at the workplace. Horseplay can be activities such as joking that includes physical contact, playing around, racing, grabbing, foolish vehicle operation, social pressure to participate in unsafe acts, harassment, and unauthorized contests.
We may see lot of horseplay at our workplaces like People pushing each other, throwing tools., pulling Charis, scaring others with our workplace with loud noise etc.,. If asked the reason given is “we were just playing or having fun” . This is a very poor excuse for unsafe activities and may lead mild to major accidents. These activities are far from humorous and may give serious consequences.
But, when it’s introduce in the right context with controlled and limited manner it gives :-
Workplace Horseplay
while done with controlled manner this will create a lighter movement and environment where workers can free from stress which will increase the Productivity.
Team Building
While plying as a team it’s create that all workers assume they were from one family and belongingness to each other irrespective of their designations. Thus create a pleasant work environment in the workplace.
Improved Moral
While Team and happy workforce always keeps the positive energy in the workplace, which will increase the productivity as the employee’s moral is high note and organization will benefit economically.
Even though there were few positive points on horseplay, but most of the time accidents are caused by unsafe acts—and horseplay itself is an unsafe act.
- While running, chasing, or pushing may cause slips, trips, trips, falls and other accidents, due to Spills on the floor, crash into a fixed object, on people etc.,
- While throwing tools cause of injuries by stab someone, hit head of a person, cause major and minor injuries.
- Fooling with PPE can damage it and expose worker to hazards as all PPEs are designed for a purpose and protecting the workers.
- Practical jokes like “Hiding” someone’s PPE, dropping your half a load, turning out lights etc., are not funny, really, they are dangerous.
The organisation and workers must keep balance between fun and professionalism & safe work activities, and make sure that every person in the workplace is respected to do the works safely to avoid possible accidents while creating happy environment, teamwork and improving the moral of the every workers.
Organisations should have a clear safety policy on Horseplay, to avoid incidents in the workplace.
