Barbara Plester on the complexity of humour, both in the workplace and beyond

“I grew up in Tāmaki Makaurau on the North Shore, and went to St Joseph's Primary and Carmel College on the edge of Lake Pupuke. I was a little bit of a class clown, but I got through school somehow and went straight into North Shore Teachers College, graduating with a Diploma of Teaching.

“I got married at 19, while I was studying at Teachers College, and we’re still together! I taught in primary schools for about 12 years. During that time my husband and I had two children, and we then adopted another two children from what is now Oranga Tamariki.

“I decided to return to university and turn my teaching diploma into a degree. I initially planned to do a Bachelor of Arts as it offered more cross credits for my teaching diploma. However, because I only took courses that fitted in with my children’s schedules, I ended up taking a business communication course. I achieved an A and thought ‘Actually, I do like this.’ So I switched from a BA to a Bachelor of Business Studies, studying topics like ethics and organisational behaviour, and I really enjoyed it.”

“After I finished my BBS, I landed a great job in an IT company that was developing software. I thought I had really made it: it was a great salary, great premises and I loved my coworkers. However, we had a very autocratic boss who didn’t approve of laughter at work – and I was way too much of a party! I only lasted three months in that environment.

“The day I resigned, Massey University offered me a scholarship to pursue my masters degree. It seemed like fate. I already had my topic – humour in the workplace – because in my previous role, I had seen what happened when fun wasn’t tolerated in a work environment. Although the company offered good conditions and good salaries, my boss couldn’t retain staff. My first thesis was about working hard and playing hard, and I finished it thinking ‘There’s so much more to do.’ So I moved on to a PhD.

“My PhD explored the relationship between humour and organisational culture. My key finding – which was a surprise, and it’s wonderful for your research to surprise you – was the idea of boundaries to humour. This was framed by participants crossing the line. When you join a company, no one tells you what the boundary is to humour and fun, so you have to work it out through interaction. In some companies, that boundary is quite tight, and in others, it’s incredibly loose. But in every company, at some stage, it’s possible to cross that line and cause an issue.

“Because my research was ethnographic, incorporating interviews and observations, I developed a very good understanding of how things operate, what’s in place to pull things back into line and when lines get crossed. It’s very dynamic, and I found that absolutely fascinating.”

“I really enjoyed the research process during my masters degree, and began to consider a career in academia. Emeritus Professor Kerr Inkson was a wonderful and important mentor who guided my career development, and I was delighted to end up working with him when, towards the end of my PhD, I landed a role at the University of Auckland. I became a lecturer in what was then the Department of Management and Employment Relations and is now Management and International Business. I’ve been here ever since – nineteen years and counting!

“I have just stepped away from the role of Associate Dean Equity, Diversity and Inclusion, a role I held for three and a half years. This role gave me some scope to try and bring in some of the things I believe in – I relished holding that position for as long as I did.

“I do a lot of mentoring, because when you’ve been well-mentored, you want to make sure that you pay it forward. Now that I’ve completed my tenure as Associate Dean, I’ve stepped into a research leadership role as the DA lead for Organisation Studies, which is about guiding my peers and people who are starting on their research journeys in that group.”

“I’m working on two papers. One is about the roles that people play in workplace humour. There are four or five quite defined roles, so I'm trying to unpack those: who are the recipients? What makes someone a target or an audience? And then back to that boundary idea: who pulls it all in? Who are the gatekeepers?

“I’m also working with my colleague Dr Rhiannon Lloyd on a paper called ‘But Seriously’, and it's about how serious workplaces have become in their humour and why. We’ve turned humour upside down and explored how seriousness is actually part of humour – we’re playing with that idea.

“I separate humour, play and fun into different constructs. I’m trying to bring all three together in my latest book, my fourth, which will be called ‘Live, Laugh, Labour’. It’s an edited collection featuring contributions from multiple authors on humour, fun, and play in the workplace. I’ve connected with the top ‘fun’ researchers around the world, who will all write a chapter, and I’m going to pull it all together.

“I’ve noticed some big changes in workplaces – boundaries are much tighter, and the work environment has become very serious. The other factor that's influenced humour in the workplace is hybrid work, because we interact in different ways now. A lot of companies use platforms like Slack or Kahoot, and that’s where they're interacting socially through emojis, GIFs and memes. I explored this topic in my previous book, Hybrid Happiness: Fun and Freedom in Flexible Work.”

“This year, I’m teaching third years, which I love. I teach a course called Critical Issues and Management, and I bring humour into this because through humour, we can explore all sorts of issues and tap into other aspects like emotions. I'm also co-teaching the Ethics part of another third-year course, Sustainability and Ethics.

“I like to centre my teaching around the student and then try and connect with what matters to them. There are so many lovely, ethically responsible young people coming through who care about climate change, the future of the planet and all those other significant issues. The question is: if they are going to be our future leaders, what do they need? For me, it’s critical thinking. Can they think well before they make their decisions? Can they think around topics from multiple viewpoints so that they can really get a handle on an issue and then go out and make the changes that the world might need? I don't expect them to go out and manage things the way my generation managed. I want them to do it their way.”

“I think what has stood out for me over the course of my research is how complex humour is – it pulls on all that complexity of being human. And the workplace context is also complex. I like that complexity, because it gives me so many pathways and threads to unravel and unpack.”

“I’m excited about leading my Organisation Studies research group, because that’s a group of about 12 colleagues who I work with quite closely and who mean a lot to me. ‘Live, Laugh, Labour’ is exciting because I’ll be networking with people all around the world. I’m also excited about my research plans, because I haven’t had the space to really focus on my research for a long time.

“And I’m excited about teaching a new group of students – I like thinking ‘What ideas are going to come out here today?’ What I enjoy about teaching is the chance to connect and, in some cases, influence or suggest alternatives to how the future of the world could look. I love the chance to inspire a little.”