Feeling Unproductive at Work? A Video Game May Be the Best Solution

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What if your company looked at the workflow coming in as an obstacle to be conquered rather than a task to be completed? The next paradigm shift in the business world may be turning the tedium of everyday work into a game or challenge that everyone is eager to participate in. 

The success of the corporate gaming craze has already begun to hit home, with Business News reporting that gamification can increase productivity by some 40%. How can you take advantage of games in order to generate better employee work efforts at the office?

Gaming as a Means of Testing

Taking on a new employee represents a major investment for the employer due to the time and resources needed to get them trained and up to speed on a new system. While there are few jobs out there that require you to fight one-on-one in a deathmatch or take down waves of attacking trolls, companies have figured out how to use video games as diagnostics and training tools for their new employees. 

CNN reports that institutions ranging from the Navy to IBM to NASA use video games to create simulations that require a participant to solve a problem or complete a diagnostic. How could your company benefit from combining testing and training with games? For starters, employees would be far more eager to show up for a workshop where they may be mentally challenged, or one where they can conquer their co-worker. When bringing in new employees, you could ensure better retention of company policies during training by keeping the content lively and engaging when presented in the form of a video game.

From One to the Other

Multi-tasking is one of the most valuable skills any worker can bring to a company, but not everyone can quickly go from one task to the next. A study by Psychology Today indicates that strategy games can help. When gamers make different choices commanding workers, powerful units, and economies, their brain improves at jumping from task to task. It's not just strategy games either. Mazes, memory games, and matching puzzles are very stimulating. 

Hidden object games from iWin, for example, require a gamer to look over different areas and use different clue-finding techniques to solve a visual puzzle. With a few games under their belt, employees can better make a decision when the best solution isn't immediately clear. This pays off when it comes to productivity for any company that has multiple deadlines per employee or per project. With gamification like strategy or hidden object games, employees can manage deadlines that conflict across time or space better than they could before, potentially resulting in projects that come in on time or ahead of schedule.

Snap Decisions

Fortune favors the bold, said Alexander the Great. It's a maxim that applies perfectly to the corporate world, even two thousand years later. Employees who have responsibility for making decisions can become more efficient at their job by—you guessed it—plugging into a console or PC in order to duke it out with their gun of choice. A first-person shooter title like Call of Duty has the potential to help a person make decisions at a faster pace due to the influence of having to pump the opposition full of lead before they return the favor. There's no compromise in the quality of these decisions, either. 

You don't have to worry that the first FPS-influenced conclusion you come to will be any worse than one you could mull over if you had more time to consider the various options. Employees need to make a bevy of snap decisions each day, ranging from the options that a marketing team uses to promote a product to a sales member who has to identify the best customers out there. With faster decisions comes less time wasted on second-guessing and scrutiny.

SEE ALSO: Game-Changing Reasons Why Parents Can Say Yes to Video Games

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*by andreascy*

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