304: Joyful Workplaces with Yolanda Fraction

Yolanda Fraction, organizational development consultant, doctoral student in IO psychology, and author of Joyful Workplaces, joins Punk Rock HR to make the case that joy at work is a strategy, not a perk. And for the leaders who bristle at the word "joy," she has a reframe: call it effectiveness. The outcome is the same either way. Bad bosses. Turnover. Absenteeism. Mental health days taken just to survive the workload. Yolanda argues these are not culture problems. They are performance problems. And they are solvable, often for free. If you lead people, support leaders in HR, or want to build workplaces that actually work, this conversation is for you. In this episode, you'll hear: Why joy is the outcome of a high-performing organization, not a mood What the opposite of joy actually looks like on a balance sheet How Yolanda builds joyful workplaces without a budget Why toxic managers are a performance problem, not just a culture problem What self-determination theory has to do with performance reviews Why an 82-slide deck won't change executive behavior, and what Yolanda does instead Why Yolanda asks leaders to imagine their 7-year-old self watching them make a difficult call.