You can’t spell ‘humor’ without ‘HR’: The role of comedy in the people function

You know HR people can be funny people, and we know HR people can be funny people, but has the rest of your organization gotten the memo?

Heed the advice of the funny people and get cracking on those jokes.

“If you’re your authentic self and you’ve got a sense of humor, lean into it, because more often than not, people appreciate that,” Ashley Bendell, co-founder of Funny People, a pop-up HR comedy show, said during a recent episode of HR Brew’s People Person podcast. “It’ll help you to stand out.”

Bendell and his co-founder, Peter Phelan, sat down with Kate Noel, SVP and head of people operations at Morning Brew, to talk about Funny People and the role of humor in HR.

The following has been edited for length and clarity.

What made you realize HR needed its own space for humor?

Bendell: I joined this industry eight years ago from Wall Street, and the perception of HR wasn’t great. People were not leaning into you and the conversation, and I like to joke around like the best of them…And it was only, what, a year and a half ago that I met Peter at an event…And we just bonded and came up with this concept.

Phelan: When I see conferences and all the content is about AI is going to take our jobs and the pace of change is accelerating, I’m like, “Okay, there’s a lot of great, serious content out there. Maybe there’s room”…It’s just like, have fun, let loose, see the funny side, build community with no pressure to have jamming all the latest HR tools and tricks.

Why did you think laughter was the answer to the problem of HR’s bad reputation?

Phelan: I was a chief people officer of a company called MediaMath, and we had an amazing run of growth and a success in the market. And I’d say humor was like a built-in feature to our culture…I can talk about specific situations, but just having that kind of sense of humor be part of the fabric of the culture, I think it was a very special insulation against bad stuff.

I’d love to hear a case study.

Phelan: It was a culture where there was just a healthy sense of fun and kind of whimsy…there was this thing called “clothes of business,” where if by some happenstance people showed up with very similar outfits…they’d take a photo and that would get posted to the [internal] Wiki and then an email would go around: “Amazing clothes of business today.” And then there was other things as well, where there was almost, weird as it may sound, policy enforcement through humor…having a sort of a sense of humor built into the culture just decreases tension, decreases barriers.

How can HR toe the line of making sure humor is well received?

Bendell: We don’t pretend to be comedians…And the people getting up on the stage, 95% of the time, are not trained comedians…The funniest people are actually the ones that come into it fairly unprepared.

Phelan: As long as it’s your authentic story, it’s not being spirited, you’re not making fun of anybody. Maybe you’re making fun of yourself. It sounds scarier than it really is.

The show is probably a test run for a lot of HR folks before they bring humor into the workplace.

Bendell: There’s so much potential with this environment. We’re starting to see HR heads, SVPs of HR like yourself, bring their teams along for a fun night. We do have people talking about how it does help with their performance, but I think we’re only scratching the surface around how to leverage different components of the evening.

You’re absolutely right. Sometimes the work you do as an HR person is beyond the textbook. It’s the trust you’ve built with someone, and that can come from cracking a joke.

Peter: It just kind of builds these warm connections and levels of trust that then can be tapped into for the day job.

Do you feel humor makes you a better professional?

Phelan: My day job is placing HR executives…I like to think I’m differentiated as a former chief people officer, but there’s probably quite a few of those as well, but is there a former chief people officer who’s now doing HR headhunting who’s also funny? So that’s making yourself a bit more memorable.

What advice would you give to HR people about bringing themselves to work?

Bendell: Be your authentic self. Don’t overthink it. And a sense of humor.

Phelan: I would say humor is a trust accelerator, so use it. And you’re an HR professional, you’ve got good radar as to what not to say, don’t hesitate, take the risk. You’d be glad you did.

For more from this conversation, tune into the People Person podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube, or watch it below.