Jeff Harry

Positive Psychology Play Speaker at Rediscover Your Play
Rediscover Your Play

Jeff has worked with Google, Microsoft, Siemens, Southwest Airlines, Adobe, the NFL, Amazon, and Facebook, helping their staff to infuse more play into the day-to-day. He is an international speaker who has presented at conferences such as INBOUND, SXSW, SHRM National, and Australia’s Pausefest, showing audiences how major issues in the workplace can be solved through play.

Engagedly selected Jeff as one of the Top 100 HR Influencers for his organizational development work around addressing toxicity in the workplace, and his play work has been featured in the NY Times, NPR, Mashable, Upworthy, Shondaland, & Wired. 

While we spend most of our time pretending to be important, serious grownups, it's when we let go of that facade and play, that the real magic happens. Fully embracing your own nerdy genius — whatever that is — gives you the power to make a difference and change lives. Jeff believes that we already have many of the answers we seek, and by simply unleashing our inner child, we can find our purpose and, in turn, help to create a better world. 

Presentations During This Conference:

Making Work Suck Less: Healing Workplaces Through Play - Thursday, October 16, 2025 at 8:15 AM

Presentation Slides

There is a growing animosity between employers and employees that we all have felt these past few years. Eighty five percent (85%) of staff are disengaged at work, and the phrase “I don’t want to work anymore” is more common than at any time in modern history. It’s manifested in quiet quitting, quiet firing, strikes, and RIFs/Layoffs. We can ignore this problem and hope it miraculously disappears, or we can proactively address it.  The organizations brave enough to take this challenge head-on will thrive for the foreseeable future, while others obsessed with the status quo will become as obsolete as Blockbuster Video.

This talk explores the bold steps we need to heal the divisions within workplaces using a play-oriented approach to work.  The only way to find unique solutions to these significant issues that organizations have been too afraid to face is through a play mindset.  We will identify immediately actionable strategies to mend the divide between executives, managers, and staff. Together, we can choose what direction we want the future of work to go. The question we must answer is: What are we willing to do to create a work culture where not only the organization can thrive but where our people finally become the priority?

Learning Objectives
• Dive into the widening employer and employee disconnect and how to mend it.
• Identify the most critical issues organizations are avoiding and how to heal this workplace division.
• Determine actionable strategies that can be applied immediately in the workplace so managers and staff can find a way to help each other do their most vibrant work.