For the past six months, Hamilton Township employees have been acting fishy. That’s exactly what Mayor John Bencivengo wants to hear.

Last summer, all municipal employees attended training classes to indoctrinate them in a workplace philosophy called FISH. The training emphasizes such ideals as workers taking responsibility for their attitude and using a playful spirit at work to solve problems creatively.

Filmmaker John Christensen developed FISH after watching how workers at Seattle’s Pike Place Market approached their jobs. The workers tossed fish to each other to entertain and engage the crowd at the market, and subsequently wound up selling plenty of seafood, too.

Private-sector businesses have adopted FISH in hopes that good corporate culture and customer service would drive higher sales. In short, happy employees make happy customers.

And that’s just what inspired Bencivengo — a strong of proponent of running the township like a business — to implement it in municipal government. Township officials hired a local consultant team, which took the basic FISH information and created custom training sessions for specific groups of employees. Training sessions lasted for two hours and involved 50 employees at a time. Bencivengo estimated the sessions cost about $15,000.

He acknowledged there are limitations on how businesslike a government can be, especially because residents have “prepaid” for government services. But Bencivengo still hopes FISH will help township employees find happiness in their duties, which will please taxpayers in turn. He said he plans to keep FISH in place as long as he holds office.

“The culture of government lends itself to a system that informs residents or business[es] of what they cannot do or what they are not allowed to do,” Bencivengo wrote in an e-mail. “And that can be very frustrating for the taxpayers, who we are here to serve. I think that government should look at it in the opposite way. Government should let residents and businesses know what they can do to help them, and actually help them through their services.”

Bencivengo pointed to the HamStat call center, which was scheduled for a public debut Feb. 28, as an example. Plans are in the works now for township employees who deal with the public to undergo customer service training later this year, a move officials said will continue improving government-constituent relations.

FISH in government is not all that rare, though. Government entities are the third largest purchaser of FISH products, said Harry Geist, a consultant with FISH parent company Charthouse Learning. Education entities are second on that list.

Township school district officials trained their employees in FISH two years ago. It was their recommendation that made Bencivengo aware of FISH and what it could bring to municipal government.

Geist said there is a common thread between private businesses, schools and government that makes FISH appealing: people’s desire to like their jobs.

“I don’t think there’s anything unique about government,” Geist said. “It’s the same reasons anyone is attracted to FISH. Most of us want our workplace to be a place to enjoy.”

FISH tackles the issue through four key philosophies. Perhaps the most counterintuitive practice encourages workers to play. Officials cautioned that being playful should not be equated to goofing off.

“You want to be playful at work,” township business administrator John Ricci said. “It’s not being a little kid, playing games. It’s if something will improve your ability to do your job, we should at least talk about it.”

Geist said FISH consultants inform those new to the philosophy that it will take time for the office culture to transition. But FISH has found its way into the township offices’ atmosphere already, both Ricci and Bencivengo said.

In past years, some township employees would put up decorations in their offices or dress up for Halloween. As part of the FISH spirit, the township held a contest this year, where departments competed with each other by decorating their offices and with employees wearing costumes. Bencivengo said all decorating had to be done on the employees’ own time.

Bencivengo went to each office to judge, and said it seemed like he was in completely different workplace. He called that day the greatest success of FISH in the township so far.

“Employees were smiling and happy to be at work,” he wrote in an e-mail. “That happiness transcended to their customer service. Residents who had to come to the township for service noticed the difference. There was even one employee who remarked that he [had] never seen the workplace be as happy as it was on that day.”

This could be because, as part of the FISH training, township officials listened to employees’ recommendations about how to improve their work environment. Ricci said such a discussion was valuable, especially because he felt taxpayers stood to benefit from happier municipal employees.

Bencivengo said he realized not every employee would embrace FISH, and that’s as much a part of FISH as being playful. It’s up to the employees to decide how to conduct themselves.

This was another reason FISH should work in Hamilton, Ricci said. It serves as an empowerment tool for employees. No one is forcing them to act a certain way, he said.

“If you had a bad weekend or a fight with your spouse, leave that at home,” Ricci said. “Come to work with a good attitude. It’s your choice how you approach your job. No one can choose for you how you do your job.”

For more information on FISH, go online to charthouse.com.