BLOG - Big businesses are increasingly acknowledging the benefits gaming can play on their staff and organizations.
 

The growing role games are playing in the lives of so many people is leading companies to formulate strategies aimed at harnessing the skills and familiarity employees have with virtual environments in order to benefit their organizations.

According to the BBC, academics and researchers say that the organizational skills required to run team games or coordinate a 40 person raid in a virtual world can be highly beneficial in the workplace.

"It's about harnessing that ability to play to get work done," says IBM’s Ian Hughes.

Dr Byron Reeves, a professor at Stanford University who has formed a company called Seriosity that applies game elements to workplaces, says that companies are more than willing to look at different methods for improving the functionality of their workforces.

Seriosity is currently working with a handful of Fortune 500 companies, and one program being run adds a virtual currency element to e-mail to help people prioritize messages and avoid information overload.

"The whole idea here is to get the objectives of the individual players aligned with the objectives of the organization. Do that and you have something good," says Reeves.

You can read the full BBC report here.

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