This blog was inspired by a recent blog post by Jack Morton, one of the world’s foremost global branding agencies. It reads:
“The whole thing snuck up on me – our corporate global challenge. And it’s not the first time that we’ve participated in one. Certainly not my first rodeo. And yet, this one has me engaged in a way that I would not have predicted. So much that it leads me to think that in the future, the best way to engage your employees is to gamify the experience.
I’m on a team of seven, and our agency has over sixty teams signed-up. For the next one hundred days, we’re tracking our steps and comparing workouts. We’re talking about it. We’re embracing our teams. We’re competing.
Consider companies that rank highest for employee engagement. It’s no surprise that they understand the importance of teams and gamification. Google, ranked number 1 for best company culture in 2017, has many perks. One is a unique and active way of engaging its employees – through pedaling a seven-person bicycle! Used often for transportation around the Google campus or even for an outdoor meeting, the Conference Bike is a team-building exercise that promotes socialization and collaboration. One driver, seven riders. The team that plays together stays together.” original article
The Team That Plays Together Stays Together
We wanted to invite you to dive a bit deeper into the different aspects of the impact the ConferenceBike can have and inspire you to find ways to integrate it into your organizations and business. Whether your goal is to build rapport, deepen relationships, or build community -or facilitate those services for a fee – the element of play, playfulness, or gamification might be the most under-researched resources in productivity, conflict-resolution, and creativity.
How much do Millennials and Baby Boomers value fun?
By 2025 almost three-quarters of the workforce in the UK and US will be made up of millennials – a generation (typically born between 1981 and 1996) of office-based workers who are clearly now accustomed to playful workplace perks.
This is in stark contrast to Baby Boomers, those employees born between 1946 and the mid-60s, with a little over half that generation (56 percent) believing fun at work is important and just 14 percent drawing a link between play and productivity.
Finding ways to integrate play into work environments will grow increasingly important.
Organizational culture is a multifaceted beast and while there are many ways to address and improve company culture, an effective way to build strong, cohesive teams and engagement is to play.
Playing together provides a shared experience that cannot be achieved if all people ever do is perform their job descriptions around each other. Playing allows them to cooperate, laugh, creatively face challenges and problem solve together, as well as experience vulnerability, improvisation, and collaboration in a fun, organic way.
The ConferenceBike is extremely playful. Play is, first and foremost, an expression of freedom. Play is always accompanied by a feeling of “Yes, this is what I want to do right now.” Players not only choose to play or not play, but they also direct their own actions during play. Play is the most democratic of all activities.
Let’s Play!