An article in the The Times of India puts together examples of how HR people are injecting a little bit of fun in the workplace.
The trend is not new - quite a few organizations specially in the new-age industries driven by knowledge workers - like IT and BPO- have identified that young people who work in their organizations need to lighten up sometimes.
And don't forget, even in the industrial economy HR was earlier called welfare - where 'taking care' of employees was seen as the first duty - and organizing family events and picnics were often more central to the perception of employees in the organizations.
However, if you're a person who's keen to pursue a career in Human Resources just because you think you're great in organizing such events - sorry to burst your bubble :-)
Events like these are merely the tip of the iceberg, and to really build a culture of fun and openness and transparency in a firm requires it to be the DNA of the organization by building it into the structure and processes of the organization.
Without that, these would seem like artificial artifacts.
Don't get me wrong, I think having a sense of fun and humor is extremely important to HR people - most of the time we are a serious and stuffy lot - hiding behind terms like 'confidentiality' (more on that sometime later!).
However if one wishes to join HR only because they like organizing fun events maybe he/she should try being an event manager than a HR manager :D
