Getting vocal in the workplace

Andra Jackson

November 5, 2010

SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA — There is nothing quite like standing side
by side with the boss, as you both open your mouth wide to give
full voice to a song, to defuse office tensions. At least that is
the theory behind the profusion of workplace choirs in Melbourne
over the past decade. As Annemarie Sharry, a musical director of
workplace and community choirs, puts it: ”A choir is a fantastic
leveller.”

About 25 Department of Human Services employees gather before
her at 5pm once a week to sing off the day’s highs and lows.
Richard Deyell, director of public housing and community building,
finds the experience ”fantastic”.

”It is a good, healthy activity for staff to be involved in the
workplace,” he says.

World Vision chief Tim Costello concurs. He asked Sharry to take
a weekly choir at the charity’s headquarters.

Singing at work has taken off ”predominantly because employees
are sitting around all day in front of computers and they’re hiding
a lot of stress, and [they] usually work in the one particular work
area, dealing with the same colleagues,” Sharry says.

Stand them in a choir, ”and you have people from the different
structures and hierarchies of the corporation or business, or
government department, that they are dealing with in a completely
different way.”

Sharry has even had staff at the Victorian Institute of Forensic
Medicine swapping testing crime scene evidence for testing their
vocal prowess.