In the last decade, there has been a lot of criticism and stereotypes about gaming, working space and productivity. There are a lot of different opinions on this matter, as many executives believe their team don’t need gaming privileges or gadgets to make their working hours more pleasant. This is happening mainly because gaming enthusiasts are often considered as slackers that lack the attention and focus during work. However, recent findings show that gamers learn quite essential skills in their online gaming environment that further make them great team members, employees and decision-makers.
Gamification and levelling up
Experienced HR experts and talent hunters agree that lessons learned while playing strategy games improved employee’s performance in real-life management roles. They indicate that employees, especially remote workers who play multiplayer online games, perform better in the modern workplace. The skills learned by participating in large and complex gaming environments somehow simulate the future contemporary corporative environment. Games like the well-known World of Warcraft or League of Legends, require players to collaborate and make individual moves and decisions. When those decisions are made in the right way and further translated at work, you might consider yourself as a lucky manager/ team member, when you have that kind of person around.
Clear goals, fair rewarding processes and level-ups are core gaming techniques that motivate the gamer generation. Human resource analysts believe managers may have to rethink how they engage with the next generation, already shaping the mainstream business. As this generation moves in the management positions or opens their own business, they are eager to apply the culture and techniques they bring from games. It will be up to CEO’s, often pre-gamer generations to decide how to educate and adapt to this culture, and how to communicate it most effectively.
Currently, there has never been a greater need for companies to learn and adapt to the dynamic business environment. The effectiveness, sharpness and creativity of strategy games have impressively influenced on a lot of cultures and industries. Let’s look at the casino gaming industry as an example. Today, every casino game provider and developer work on developing engaging online gameplay and attractive game design. The days when developers heavily relied on the nostalgic factor of the game are gone for good. Check and find out more at SlotsWise about the most popular online slots from the top-rated casino game developers, each one having a unique approach and market identity.
In the collaboration between executives and pro gamers, we can distinct few benefits of using games for enhancing the strategy and execution skills at work:
Implement honest real-time feedback
With instant feedback on a task, expressed in detail regarding rating or review from the stakeholder, non-gamer generation can learn faster and quicker about their performance and quality at work. Fails in gaming have no downside, unlike in the working environment. Today’s games simulate testing playgrounds for different scenarios. They represent a kind of maps where moves can be undone, and various decision paths tried out. Well-thought strategy game can model working environment tailored to the company’s needs. Based on the goals, the concept can quickly adapt to the employee’s skill level and learning path – books, articles, webinars or tutorials. A smart execution process or popularly called the flow zone is the optimum between a skill and a challenge yet to be overcome. Here are the series of rounds of increasing difficulty, demanding a more complex approach to the challenge. This learning curve of a game can be tailored to the individuals at work, without overwhelming them with the workload as reality often does it.
Incorporating continuum and engagement
Games require players to explore and analyse the environment to plan their gameplay and moves. This way, they can make a better estimation of the situation and reflect on the consequences of their actions. Stimulating the cognitive and analytical senses from the very beginning provide more immersive experience compared to the short brief or long meeting. This feature will fully bloom over seminars or tutorials once VR becomes completely mainstream, giving the ability to test a few scenarios and see the outcome of them in real-time. The collaboration with others helps in training a range of theoretical skills. This way, you can wisely observe one’s actions over a longer timeline.
Structured behavioural analysis
By inspecting the what-ifs and current or planned steps, employees and managers can reflect on their actions and strategies. This way, even minor moves in executing a task become visible and help in understanding the casualties that led to success or failure. A function where an employee can trace its actions or view the process from another department’s perspective allows a transparent overview of performance. For example, many of the IT and software solution companies enable employees to develop an importance board of appreciation where they vote and choose the right approach to execute a process/campaign. By featuring short rounds of simulated gameplay in different environments, they perform a running process on the performance. The leader board allows comparison across employees and identifies the best strategists. Replaying the post-action scenarios allow people to understand the consequences of their decision. This process of complex evaluation and reflection can give answers to questions such as: Was my strategy correct or had flaws in the execution? To improve results and outcomes, all employees need to observe better, have an in-depth consideration of their options, be more flexible, think in layers and so on.
Easy roll-out and induction to all parties
Where coaching, seminars and conferences practically limit the number of participants, games display unlimited scalability and ability to adapt. Many agile solutions and simulations we know today have their origin from the military sphere. Armies and special forces use strategy games and simulate scenarios to train hundreds of troops. On the other hand, when we talk about the modern gaming environment, it is critical to scale and tackle possible blocking points. Of course, such strategies need to be carefully programmed and might require a lot of time before they go live. However, they can be rolled out to many departments at practically no cost. Adjustments in scenarios can be easily changed and implemented by adding new parameters or merely creating a new template for the training.
When used appropriately, gaming strategies can help corporations build and develop essential skills and mindset in a focused and timely manner. Thinking clearly and critically in a dynamic business environment is considered as a skill rather than an attitude. It’s time to consider unconventional solutions to stay ahead of competitors and be at the frontline of the business game.
