What are corporate games?

Corporate games are recreational activities that encourage learning, changing behavior and improving relationships within the company, thus combining entertainment and a strategy for developing people.

This methodology simulates scenarios that do not faithfully imitate the reality of employees, but that, even so, reflect situations and behaviors of their daily lives. This playful environment allows participants to act the same way they do in their daily lives, and not take the attitudes they believe are correct according to the dynamics.

In this way, the technique helps HR to map the habits of employees that need to be changed, reducing the possibility of these behaviors being masked even unconsciously by professionals.

The games are used mainly in a timely manner for the evaluation of employees and also with the objective of changing certain behaviors, thus improving the performance of the entire team. All of this is done in a recreational environment with controlled decisions and attitudes, aiming for a specific purpose.

Thus, even simulating playful situations, corporate games bring real results for the company, developing its employees on a personal and professional level.

Division of corporate games

Corporate games can work with various purposes, but it is possible to divide them into two large groups:

1-collaborative games

As the name indicates, they are fun activities in which only with everyone’s collaboration is it possible to achieve the proposed objective or mission. This type of game encourages teamwork, thus strengthening the relationship of employees in the same sector and demonstrating how each professional is important to achieve the victory of the activity or the success of the company.

2-competitive games

This model, on the other hand, encourages competition among participants to demonstrate how the attitudes and decisions of the collaborator or winning team impacted their success. This helps everyone to assess their own performance and analyze what behaviors they can have to achieve their goals.

Competition is important for employees to seek constant improvement in their work, bringing better results for the company. However, it is also essential to work the difference between this quality and rivalry, which causes enmities and harms the performance of everyone and even the company itself.

What is the purpose of cooperative games?

Corporate games aim to engage employees to carry out the activity proposed by the company, generally aimed at teaching skills and abilities.

Instead of working with traditional methodologies, companies tend to use this type of tool to share content in a more attractive and playful way.

Types of corporate games

Cooperative games can be divided into 5 categories:

1. Behavioral Games

These are games with practices aimed at developing behavioral characteristics ( soft skills ) of employees, such as interpersonal relationships, trust, teamwork, creativity, empathy, work ethics and communication.

2. Market Games

Market games are created to teach professionals to interact and relate to customers and suppliers and improve the organization’s internal processes.

3. Process Games

The process games, on the other hand, aim to improve technical skills, also known as hard skills , such as finance, organization, project management, knowledge in the office package, among others.

4. Functional Games

Dedicated to sectors of great importance to the company, this type of corporate game seeks to optimize the processes that ensure the company grows in a healthy way, such as the accounting, HR and marketing sectors.

5. Systemic Games

Systemic games are those that cover the entire company, that is, those that seek to align employees with the company’s expectations, promote the business culture, integrate sectors and improve the organizational climate.

Why do games help engage and motivate employees?

Corporate games directly influence three main elements of the company: in the practice of teamwork, in the development and improvement of skills and abilities of employees and in welcoming new professionals. Check out about each one.

1-Encourages teamwork

Teamwork is directly linked to the growth and success of an organization, because it increases the performance of employees and facilitates the construction of a collaborative environment. So, encouraging teamwork is an essential practice for the operation of a company.

There are several types of specific games that can be applied to work on behavioral skills in order to improve harmony among employees and help them deal with differences, and the game is an option.

And in all of them, professionals come to understand that each one needs to work together and use their skills and competences in order to achieve the same goal.

2-Develops employee competence and attitudes in the organization

Corporate games are also known for developing practices and skills of professionals, because they help to identify some important behavioral traits of employees.

Through games, for example, it is possible to recognize which professional reacts better to pressure or which has the spirit of leadership. That’s why they can be an auxiliary tool in the company that helps to exploit the maximum power of each employee.

Although the organization has already outlined some competencies and skills in the recruitment and selection process, some of them are only identified in the professional’s trajectory, others are developed in the work environment, so the games help to realize this.

3-It helps new employees feel part of the company

In addition to all the contributions already mentioned here, corporate games can still be adopted by organizations in order to integrate new professionals and share about the organizational culture.

Actions like these make employees feel embraced by the company, as they demonstrate the concern to insert new professionals into the work environment.

What is the advantage of adopting corporate games?

Although one of the main objectives of corporate games is to assess and change the behavior of employees, the application of this methodology also brings other benefits for the company’s people management.

By helping the employee to have more positive behaviors, he works on his personal development. This process values ​​the employee and also encourages their professional improvement, allowing them to grow more and more within the organization and, in this way, contribute even more to their success.

This attention directly impacts the employee’s motivation, who will feel more valued and, thus, will have more dedication to their work. The playful characteristic of the games will also make the environment more relaxed, giving more encouragement to the professional and his team.

Another point is that, with collaborative games, employees have the opportunity to strengthen their relationships outside the rush and pressure of everyday life. This strengthens the team and helps each one to see their value within the team and the institution.

All these factors help the employee’s engagement in the organization, as he will be more motivated and will feel an important part within the sector and, consequently, the company. In this sense, he will create a personal connection with his work, becoming a more committed, efficient and proactive employee.

How to work corporate games in company?

Before adopting this strategy, it is important to assess which competence is needed to work in the team. Some games are focused on developing participants’ planning, leadership, collaboration, negotiation and communication skills, so HR must seek an activity focused on their demand.

In addition to defining the game‘s central objective, it is also essential to study everything that will make up the activity, such as the physical space, the analogies used, rules, missions, objects used, design, among other possibilities. After developing the dynamic, it should be tested to assess its effectiveness and verify the points that can be improved. Then it is necessary to choose the most suitable facilitator, that is, the person responsible for implementing the activity and analyzing the participants.

This methodology is very democratic, and can be applied to both small and larger groups and in the most different situations: try using games at conventions, events, employee development, leadership training and team strengthening. Then assess the results of the action, such as the engagement of participants and their perception of the activity.

To bring even better results, corporate games can be adopted together with other strategies, such as lectures, corporate training and gamification. The latter has a context that is close to the dynamics addressed in this article, however, it has different characteristics and objectives.

Corporate Games and Gamification

While corporate games are punctual strategies, gamification can be worked extensively within the company. This methodology uses elements common to games in contexts that are not limited to play, incorporating them into everyday tasks to make them more dynamic and engaging.

In practice, gamification creates a competitive environment using tools such as scoring, ranking and storytelling to motivate employees to carry out certain activities or have certain positive behaviors, rewarding them for their progression. All of this is done in a playful and innovative way, drawing the attention of employees even more and helping to retain them in the dynamics.

In addition to daily tasks, gamification is also applied in corporate training and in the integration of new employees, helping to make denser content more accessible and easier to assimilate.

Where to apply corporate games?

Corporate games can be mainly applied in two contexts, corporate events and business projects.

1-Corporate events

Corporate events usually cover all employees of the institution, a situation in which it is a great challenge to arouse everyone’s attention and interest, which is why corporate games become an excellent alternative, with them the company can adapt the game to the event’s theme and bring a different dynamic to the business context, which will generate curiosity among employees and, consequently, make them more interested.

2-business projects

Corporate games also fit into any business project. That is, through this feature, it is possible to define plans for the future of the company, the service or product it holds, or even its professionals.