Go ahead and admit it. You've been known to play a game or two of computer Solitaire while on the clock. Maybe so much so that you're an expert at hitting the "boss button" that brings up that impressive fake spreadsheet on your monitor.

But what if your boss encouraged you to play online games as a reward for performance? And offered prizes - gift cards and refillable debit cards, for example - for doing so.

Not in this lifetime, right?

Don't be so quick to discount this sneaky tactic that has been proven to improve productivity in the workplace for workers of all ages.

Employers everywhere - Press One locally, Microsoft nationally - are discovering that employees playing games as a reward for performance can be a good thing. In fact, a very good thing.

The workforce is now filled with a generation of employees who have grown up playing computer games. In fact, statistically speaking, 50 percent of all Americans play some sort of video game regularly, according to Pew Internet Research. And a 2008 study by Forester Research shows that games help workers do real work.



Enhancing metrics

Andy Orr, president of Press One, a call center located in Old Town Fort Collins and whose clients include USA Today and the New York Times, said "we're always looking for a way to enhance our metrics. Call center metrics are usually cut and dried but not always achievable."

That changed when one day Brooks Mitchell, professor of management at the University of Wyoming and founder of Snowfly, a Laramie-based company that designs, implements and administers workforce incentive programs, popped in with some cookies and a demo of his product, Snowfly Capstone.

Orr said he treated it like any other sales call. But before dismissing the product, however, he ran the demo and saw that it aligned with his call-center metrics and offered a way to keep "service levels right in front of our agents." That it meant the potential to increase their compensation levels was all the inducement agents needed to give it a try.

The 170 agents, most of whom are part-time employees, can make an additional 20 cents to $2 an hour as a result of playing the games. The size or type of award the player wins is left up to chance, much like playing the slots in Las Vegas.

Snowfly's approach to employee motivation involves four themes: immediate recognition, relevant incentive rewards, accountability and the behavior-changing power of intermittent positive reinforcement.



How it works

So how does Snowfly Capstone work? Program participants are informed of specific goals they need to achieve and/or desired actions they need to demonstrate. Upon meeting these goals, participant accounts are credited with points and/or game tokens. Participants use tokens to play a quick online game that will randomly yield up to 5,000 points.

Gamers redeem points and receive a reward of their choice - a reloadable debit card, Amazon.com merchandise or gift cards to national retailers and restaurants.

Initially about 60 percent of Press One agents played Snowfly games and now it's 100 percent, Orr said. Rewards are loaded onto debit cards.

"Call-center jobs can be limited in their reward other than pay," Orr said. "Sometimes they deal with irate customers, and they have to say the same thing over and over. This (the game) helps when you're sitting for four or five hours - to play a game of chance they can't lose, but the results are different every time. There's mystery, intrigue."

Another benefit has been a 60 percent reduction in employee turnover. "Especially since we increased what (playing the game) is worth," Orr noted.

All this from playing a game?

"There's all kinds of research that shows a well-planned incentive plan increases performance by 22 percent," Mitchell, a longtime Business Report columnist,  said. "All of our games are random-reward games and take five seconds to play."

Spin a wheel. Ski jump. Race horses. Up to 60 games offer rewards worth 2 cents to $50.

Company literature states that the games are a "superior motivator because employees have true choice in determining their own rewards and because, scientifically speaking, the random positive reinforcement generated by Capstone's Games more effectively sustains long-term behavioral changes when compared to predictable and routine reinforcement."



Tokens for performance

Companies that use the online games do so as a means to increase sales revenue, decrease employee turnover, improve employee health and wellness, decrease absenteeism, solicit employee feed back, improve workforce safety, recognize and reward employee tenure, and facilitate peer to peer recognition.

"Maybe you get tokens for being on time to work, for completing phone calls on time. When you have a game of chance, you're not rewarding someone who can play a better game, but who performs more," Mitchell said.

Typically an employee will spend about 12 to 15 minutes per week playing Snowfly games. Mitchell added that incentive programs such as his can indirectly involve the family in the workplace as well. Forty-two percent of employees who earn game tokens at work take the tokens home and play them online with their children in exchange for chores, exercise, and homework.

And the best part of these games? Anyone of any age can play. You don't need a game controller - or a teenager - to help you win.