Vorsprung Durch Assassins Creed

Do you spend time playing online games at work?

Correction.  Do you spend enough time playing online games at work?

Yes, its official.  Online gaming during office hours could actually improve employee performance, according to a recent paper from the University of Hamburg.

Now that an activity formally defined as ’cyberslacking’  has the official academic blessing of the land of ‘vorsprung durch technik’, we can come clean.  We’ve been actively encouraging online gaming at the office for years.  We call it ‘interactive incentivisation’  and  ’e-learning’,  but it comes to very nearly the same thing.  And, yes, it very definitely improves performance and productivity

Everyone needs a little fun at work, not just for ‘recovery experience’ as the writer puts it (maybe it sounds less drastic in German), but to help absorb key messages and to get inspired.  It’s a sad fact that, whilst I can remember virtually nothing about all the Theoretical Chemistry I crammed so reluctantly for exams, I seem to have almost total recall of the lyrics of  every chart single of the past two decades.  It’s so much easier to  absorb information,  conciously or unconciously, when you’re relaxed and enjoying yourself.

Virtual reality based online training , originally designed to save on raw materials and travel costs to training schools, has also demonstrated that people enjoy learning much more  in interactive online enviroments.  And because we devote more time and attention, concious or unconcious, to what we enjoy, they learn faster and better.

It’s the same with incentives.  We include a strong online gaming element, whether it’s pre-launch ‘teasers’ spot-competitions or knowledge checks, to keep participants on their toes, engaged and achieving through enjoyment.  We have them playing ‘spot the yeti’ competitions, opening countdown calendars, chasing their avatars up mountains or sending each other e-cards when they ought to be working.  Except of course they are working.  It just doesn’t feel like it.

So why not go with the flow and harness the power of online gaming for your next incentive programme?   The results may well astonish you!  Check out some ideas here