Collaborative video games could increase office productivity

Do you know playing collaborative video games in the office increases productivity by 20%? Confused? Wondering how can one even get the work done while playing games? Well, let’s discuss that in detail here.

Research by BYU professors in 2019 proved that playing video games in workplaces results in amazing productivity, as much as 20%. BYU business professors hired 352 individuals and divided them into different teams making sure none of the individuals in a team have pre-existing relationships. Then they conducted a geocaching competition called Findamine, in which the clues to find landmarks are given as text-based clues rather than GPS location.

After the first round, the researchers came up with three different conditions: 1. goal training 2. quiet homework time 3. team video gaming. They assigned one of these conditions to all the teams randomly for 45 minutes. The team who should play video games were given two choices “Halo 4” and “Rock Band” as these require collaborative efforts to win.

In the first round of Findamine, researchers found the goal training teams achieved a higher boost in teamwork than the rest. But, in the second round, they were surprised to see a significant rise in team cohesion between the video-gaming team that reported a higher performance.

Thus no matter the size and goals of your business, if your organization has a set of employees who make good teams, the success comes faster and stays longer. And video games such as Halo, Rock Band etc that require collaborative efforts from each member of the team play an important role in building a great team.

Let us see how exactly playing video games could increase your office productivity.

Faster Decision Making

Speed and accuracy are two key factors that determine productivity. Playing video games in the office during breaks promotes employees’ cognitive and decision-making skills. Quick decision-making skills come useful in different everyday situations for your team.

In a study, a group of young adults (between 18 to 25 years of age) were asked to play either action video games or slow-moving games for 50 hours. The researchers then asked them to finish multiple tasks that involve quick decision making. It is observed that the group that played action games reported quicker decision making with higher accuracy than the other teams.

This proves that letting your employees play action video games regularly makes them quick and accurate decision-makers and highly productive.

Improved Teamwork

A team can achieve much more than what an individual can achieve! Teamwork not only results in great productivity but also helps businesses in the bottom line. In fact, this is why organizations invest thousands of dollars in team-building activities. 

But the days are changing. Video gaming has become one of the most effective trends in workplaces to boost productivity by pushing team building. By making your workers play collaborative games such as Rock Band, they will get to know more about each other. They will understand their colleague’s strengths and weaknesses better so that they could help each other in office work when required. Thus playing video games that require coordinated efforts, your employees will understand each other better and make a strong team which brings fruits to the organization in the end. Most importantly, a fun, gaming environment brings a positive and productive work environment which is ultimately crucial for achieving higher productivity.

So, if you are planning to invest chunks of money and efforts in traditional team building activities to boost teamwork and productivity, better get an Xbox or some other gaming gadgets if required. Do not know which game to get to enhance your office productivity? Read reviews of different action games, play them for free or buy from Insider.Games: Be in the Good Game.

Effective Breaks

Gaming is not just fun, it restores you from stress and makes you ready to work fresh again. Hence, it is highly recommended to let your people play video games frequently during breaks. While breaks alone can result in amazing productivity, when they are mixed with video games, you can expect incredible results.

So allow your employees to take frequent breaks and play video games so that they return to work with complete focus on the task at hand. Not just that they come back with quicker response times and result in greater productivity. 

Setting up a gaming console in your conference room and letting them play during team activities is not a bad idea either.

Make it part of your office culture

Now that you have seen how playing video games in workplaces could increase office productivity. Let us see how to implement video games in your workplace. 

Make playing video games a part of your workplace policy. Allow your employees to take frequent breaks and play video games. The ideal work-to-break ratio is said to be 52 minutes of work followed by 17 minutes of break. These smaller sprints of work time will enable workers to focus and finish the task at hand faster with greater accuracy. Moreover, when they return to work after a break that completely detaches them from work, they focus more and accomplish more.

Make video gaming your go-to team-building activity whenever you feel your team really needs a boost to achieve more productivity. Having said that, set up a gaming console in the conference room.

Implementing video gaming in your work culture not only helps you and your existing employees in terms of productivity but it also attracts new young and talented employees. Your work culture and environment speak to the new joiners on behalf of you. However, you can benefit from getting video games to your work only when you do it rightly. The researchers stated that playing video games in the office may result in a bad environment if the team members know each other already and carry negativity. So, make sure you organize teams well and stay strict about the time spending on games and breaks.

Bottom Line

So, as you can see there are many advantages of playing video games in workplaces that finally result in higher office productivity. No matter if you just started a new team or feel like your existing team needs a boost, encourage them to play video games. Long duration goal training in a cheesy room might not result positively sometimes. Letting them play and win in teams may be the latest and most effective way to go this time. Hence, get PlayStations and some collaborative video games for your employees to increase team strength and productivity.