Get gaming to get the edge
26-DEC-08
By Fiona Ross
Say "game" to staff and you may just get a few curious expressions as they wonder what games have to do with the world of work, but give them a few minutes with an engaging game and you’ll soon see their true colours come out.
With some traditional approaches to training leaving staff bored to tears and achieving poor results, and traditional assessment methods disappointing with new recruits not measuring up to first impressions, perhaps its time for some new ideas in the HR mix to give the role the edge it needs to make a big contribution to business success.
Games may be perceived as a bit lightweight when many think about what creates bottom-line results, but research and experience is proving the reality is quite the contrary.
Susan El-Shamy, author of the bestseller Training Games: Everything You Need to Know About Using Games to Reinforce Learning, says there’s more to playing a training game than winning or losing. There is even more than the pleasure in the playing.
“With a well-designed and well delivered training game you can repeat and reinforce key learning concepts, provide safe practice of new skills, and let learners analyse, interpret, discuss and reflect on new information – all in a stimulating, challenging and enjoyable context,” she writes, adding that many learning theories give support to the use of training games.
“The design and delivery of effective training should be ideally be based on a variety of learning theories and stimulate as many modalities and senses as possible. Games are the ideal learning tools to do just that.”
A recent feature in Human Capital Management argues that entertainment and learning need not be mutually exclusive. In fact, when delivered in the right format, they can support each other to great effect.
“It is in teaching specific workplace and decision making skills that gaming and, in particular, simulation is now really coming into its own.”
So there is much more to games than may first meet the eye.
The benefits in particular are valuable and difficult to achieve through traditional training methods such as presentations and lectures alone.
These include getting people out of traditional roles and expressing themselves more freely, drawing out quiet or new staff, revealing hidden issues and talents, generating an atmosphere of energy and enjoyment, and generating new ideas.
So what are the types of games out there? Training games can be similar technically to many of the best-loved games we all know, from puzzle and trivia games to card games and board games.
If one takes board games as an example, they can be designed to integrate learning on almost any topic from an organisation's safety or customer service policies and processes to the its long-term strategy.
A game developed by consultancy Learn to Lead called “Leaders in Action”, for example, teaches six core leadership competencies to small or large groups: Clear communication; Effective management of change; Motivating a team; Dealing with conflict and difficult issues; Effective planning and organising; and Delivering through others while getting your own work done.
Another, a board game on diversity, promotes knowledge about the diverse cultures in South Africa.
An exciting new application of games is in the assessment of potential new staff. Traditionally interviews have been the norm for most firms, but when it comes down to choosing between individuals closely matched, a game is the perfect tool for previewing their real-world performance.
KPMG recently became one of the first firms in South Africa to use games as part of their assessment of graduate recruits.
According to Jerome Rieck, People Manager – Tax, Advisory and Support at KPMG, introducing the game component, designed by Learn to Lead, has helped tremendously in hiring the best candidates.
“There are many graduates out there and we need to recruit the cream of the crop. We conducted the traditional assessment process and developed a short list of candidates we thought stood out. In the past, however, despite these traditional screening methods there have been some new recruits who, when it came the realities of the workplace, did not live up to our expectations,” he says.
“What we found is that using games is a great way to look at people in a space where they could just be themselves. We could assess them in key areas such as interpersonal skills, if they are problem-solvers, their ability to motivate others, how they communicate, how they deal with pressure, and if they have leadership abilities.
“It’s a more holistic approach to recruitment that really gets a better understanding of the people we are assessing through bringing the real person to the fore,” says Rieck.
So not only do games improve the learning process in training initiatives by engaging creativity and intelligence and making learning fun, they also make choosing the right people a whole lot easier – investing in some play then can pay a business back big on the bottom-line.
Fiona Ross is a Director of Learn to Lead, an experiential training organisation specialising in customised training (fiona@learntolead.co.za). Full details on Learn to Lead available here
