The thought of letting employees play games at the office might sound ridiculous at first glance. Offices are all about productivity and hitting work quotas efficiently. However, these robot-like work environments increase stress and reduce employee satisfaction.
The great resignation has pushed employers to think of new ways to incentivize people to work for them. It isn’t enough to simply throw money at an employee. People need satisfaction and other qualitative elements in place before accepting an offer.
Games cannot solve all of the issues employers face these days all by themselves. However, they can alleviate a poor workplace atmosphere and increase productivity. Here are X ways in which games help companies boost work productivity.
They reduce stress
Games are all about fun, even the most intense ones. After all, they’re one of the purest forms of entertainment. Games offer rewards and goals in a progressive structure, and many educational apps and software have taken a page from this playbook to boost engagement.
For instance, many goal-based apps offer a gamified structure that keeps users engaged. While gamifying the workplace might seem tough, there’s nothing stopping companies from incorporating games into their everyday work schedule.
Employers can either create game time that their employees can use to play games such as spider solitaire or create group-based games that engage entire teams at the same time. These activities reduce stress and produce a happier workplace. Stress-free employees also get more work done in less time.
Games are also a better option compared to mindless tasks such as social media browsing. There are many distractions in the modern workplace, and instead of looking to eliminate them, employers are better off choosing options that boost engagement. Social media browsing doesn’t increase employee skills or provide an outlet for stress. If anything, it only increases it.
They boost teamwork skills
Group-based games require team members to work with each other to achieve a goal. This is exactly what every company wants its workforce to do, and games offer organizations a good way of communicating this message. For instance, complex projects require multiple team members to be on the same page and communicate effectively.
Games offer a stress-free, low-risk environment where team members can practice their communication skills and evaluate the impact of their actions. They can also incorporate negative feedback healthily since game performance isn’t tied to their workplace evaluations. By removing the personal angle from the situation, employers can induce better workplace habits in their workforce.
If employers find motivation within a team slacking or that a new team is struggling to bond, games offer a great way to get goals back on track. People will get to know each other’s strengths and weaknesses. This in turn helps the team when they’re facing tight deadlines and have to rely on teammates to get tasks done.
Project managers and higher-level executives can also receive feedback on how well they’re communicating their goals to the team. Often, competent and skilled teams fail due to poor leadership. Team building games provide managers feedback in a safe environment that they can use to incorporate lasting changes.
They boost cognitive skills
Games, even simple ones like Sudoku or Freecell, promote cognitive skill development. Ensuring a productive work rate is especially a challenge with an older workforce. As time goes on, people become more rigid in their habits and find it hard to handle change.
Integrating gaming into everyday work life can push people to confront their comfort zones and make them comfortable with challenges. They’ll be less likely to ignore workplace issues that are outside their comfort zone thanks to experience dealing with such issues in a game.
Tougher games also boost logical reasoning skills that keep analytical abilities intact. Roles that involve a lot of reasoning such as data science and analytics will benefit from such activities. Business intelligence is democratized these days, and every employee should contribute some level of insight.
Doing this requires good reasoning and logical skills, and games provide an ideal training ground. In addition to cognitive skills, games also require problem-solving skills. These skills come in handy when dealing with workplace emergencies. For instance, team members will feel more confident handling issues instead of passing them on to their managers.
Managers in turn can outsource tasks confidently to their teams, knowing that their team will let them know of any emergencies or situations outside their control, as opposed to escalating everything automatically.
A novel solution
Games at the workplace might sound like a bad mix, but it’s a novel solution with many benefits for far-sighted employers. Games these days offer rich narratives and boost cognitive skills. There’s undoubtedly a ton of benefits to be realized when they’re incorporated into workplaces.
