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• Position: THE WORKPLACE - Survey - Brief article

How important is humor in the workplace? According to a new survey, nearly eight in 10 chief financial officers believe an employee's sense of humor is a factor for fitting into a particular company's corporate culture. We kid you not.

The survey was conducted by Accountemps, the staffing service for temporary accounting, finance and bookkeeping professionals, and was based on interviews with more than 1,400 CFOs from U.S. companies with 20 or more employees.

Not all respondents said a worker's sense of humor is essential to cultural acclimation and workplace success--only 22 percent described it as "very important" in fitting into the corporate culture. But another 57 percent said it was some-what important. One in five put no stock in humor as a key cultural consideration.

Max Messmer, chairman of Accountemps (and author of Managing Your Career For Dummies), puts it succinctly: "All work and no play can erode employee morale."

"Sometimes, a little levity goes a long way...