Forgive me for the silly tittle, the Financial Times today reported about the positive aspects of games. With the battles between Sony and Microsoft’s XBox heating up, some interesting news about the more positive side effects of gaming. Not that I am interested in games whatsoever, but FT noted apart from the jobs and the economical benefits, the fact that gaming seems to improve staff productivity, and is used for training. Gaming: a WorkVitamin!
We have never used games for our projects, however or we have been installing darts, snooker tables, golf putties and recently table football (in the US called foosball). The staff loves it! We are suggesting inter-departmental competitions.

I googled the positive aspects of gaming and found a very interesting article on the features in games that contribute to motivation in games. Take table 2: Motivation and change the words player to worker and you have the basis for the design of a work environment with happy, motivated staff.

Read this at onrec.com

” The Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development reports that staff churn at UK companies is 15.7% and that the estimated direct cost of replacing an employee is 50% of their starting salary (once advertising, training, administration and management time is taken into account). With an average salary of £22,000, a business of 250 staff could lose £430,000 a year simply due to dissatisfaction with the office environment. In the financial or legal sectors, where recently qualified employees can average salaries nearer £50,000, the cost is closer to £1 million.”

That is nearly JPY 90,000,000 to 208,000,000, the cost of renovating an office for 250 staff.