I wonder if there are studies about morale building activities. My anecdotal guess is that morale building activities work as long as you don't try to to make

I wonder if there are studies about morale building activities. My anecdotal guess is that morale building activities work as long as you don't try to to make them "morale building activities". Board game nights, fifa tournaments, paid-for conferences, drink-carts, thanksgiving potlucks & year-end parties are all morale building events. But it is important for them to appear organic and unsupervised. These serve as great ways to build genuine connections with coworkers, understand why they have certain triggers and resolve issues through a secondary activity. But if HR is breathing down your neck, forcing you to do any of that.....it won't happen. However, it also means allowing uncertainty & odd conversations every once in a while. As long as HR only exists as a guard-rail to avoid the worst outcomes (actual aggression, black-out drunks, sexual harassment), these events can be incredibly rewarding.