Transforming work with play: Insights into embedding playfulness at work

The webinar recording can be found here: https://youtu.be/A81ueC0G0zI

Engagement at work is under pressure. Employees grapple with escalating demands and constrained resources, all while seeking deeper meaning and purpose in their work.

In response, organisations often attempt to improve engagement by restructuring what people do through changes to roles, task distribution or team arrangements. While such interventions can be effective, they are not always practical or feasible.

Greater opportunity often exists in rethinking how work is done. Evidence increasingly shows that when employees intentionally integrate playfulness into their work, they experience higher levels of engagement and enthusiasm. Play has been shown to be effective in helping people stay focused, energised and resilient in the workplace, making it a powerful yet underutilised approach to improving everyday work experiences.

Building on this evidence, our first webinar will explore the concept of playful work design. Dr Yuri Scharp (Tilburg University) will introduce the approach, challenge common assumptions about play at work, and reframe playfulness as a strategic workplace approach that serves both organisational goals and employee needs. He will be joined by Dr Fangfang Zhang (Research Fellow, Centre for Transformative Work Design) for a facilitated discussion on playful work design and other related topics.

Moderated by John Curtin Distinguished Professor Sharon Parker (Director, Centre for Transformative Work Design at Curtin University), the webinar will also cover key research implications and practical recommendations for organisations seeking to integrate play into work effectively.

This webinar is organised by the Centre for Transformative Work Design at Curtin University and forms part of a dedicated series showcasing further insights from ‘Transformative Work Design: Synthesis and New Directions’, an edited academic book that synthesises contemporary work design research and theory, with contributions from 49 authors across 25 chapters.

About the speakers

Dr Yuri Scharp is an Assistant Professor of Human Resource Studies at Tilburg University’s School of Social and Behavioral Sciences. His research examines how play and technology shape motivation, engagement, and everyday work behavior, with a focus on playful work design, day-level processes, and interventions that translate science into practice. He co-introduced and validated the playful work design construct (Human Relations) and showed how it fuels work engagement through self-determination mechanisms (Journal of Vocational Behavior). His work also includes diary evidence on using playful strategies to cope with hindrance demands (Journal of Occupational Health Psychology). Beyond research, he develops workshops and teaching that help organizations apply these insights.  

Dr Fangfang Zhang is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Centre for Transformative Work Design, the Future of Work Institute, Curtin University. Her research focuses on work design and job crafting, especially in the context of increasing use of technologies and AI. Fangfang’s research has been published in top-tier journals such as the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology, MIT Sloan Management Review, and the European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology. One paper, written in collaboration with Sharon Parker on the topic of job-crafting, won the award for best paper in the Journal of Organizational Behavior in 2019, a highly cited paper award for 2019-2020, and was the top downloaded paper from Wiley in 2018-2019.

Moderator

John Curtin Distinguished Professor Sharon K. Parker is an Australian Research Council (ARC) Laureate Fellow, John Curtin Distinguished Professor at Curtin University, and Director of the Centre for Transformative Work Design in Perth, Western Australia. A globally recognised authority in organisational behaviour, her research focuses on work design, proactivity, performance, mental health and organisational change. Her contributions have been widely recognised, including the Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science Award from the Australian Psychological Society (2025), the WA Premier’s Scientist of the Year Award and People’s Choice Award (2024) and being named Australia’s leading researcher in Human Resources and Organisations in the 2026 Research Magazine published by The Australian. Professor Parker will soon lead a $94.6 million ARC Centre of Excellence for Quality Work in a Digital Age (QWiDA), a flagship initiative aimed at supporting research to empower workers in the digital era.