Workplace Wellness: Complicated, Costly, Crucial!
The cost of doing business in a tough economy is challenging enough without the burden of increased healthcare costs for employees. Beyond keeping employees feeling healthy and fit, workplace wellness can increase productivity, reduce absenteeism, and create an enegaged and motivated workforce. If a person plays select casual games while standing and moving they get all the usual benefits of the game plus:
- More oxygen to the brain
- Balance and agility
- Increased fun factor
- Alternative to the "reward" a trip to the vending machine or smoking area might bring
- Increased motivation to come to work - reduced absenteeism
- Productivity and energy soar with active "play breaks" throughout the day: Easily added the Footgaming way
- Wellness and Smoking Cessation support
The FUN Factor:
Jason Della Rocca, executive director of the International Game Developers Association, said he wasn’t aware of any commercial game designers incorporating medical research into their products. But he also said video games’ biggest strength is their ability to transport players away from themselves and their problems, which ultimately may be the best medicine. “In their quest to make the game more fun to play, does that mean it’s a more therapeutic game to play? If so, it wasn’t intentional,” Della Rocca said. “It seems this idea of making things more fun has some good consequences.”
Another benefit - for the employer working hard to increase employee wellness, adding FootGaming to casual gaming puts an activity usually done "on the sly" into center stage at the appropriate time and place with added fitness benefits. FootGaming can be a cost effective strategy on many levels. Some ideas are listed here.We have developed a training program and many support resources for HR, employers and employees who might want to integrate Footgaming at work - or for the at-home/leisure casual game time.
For more detail and program support, please SUBSCRIBE TO OUR WORKPLACE E-NEWSLETTER.
Walking Programs :
The FootPOWR peripheral has a unique logging
tool. Once the peripheral is plugged in to the computer,
each step a person takes while playing a game is logged.
Data on miles "walked," calories burned and even walkathon and
team competitions can be easily developed. If you already
have any sort of walking program - whether individual or team -
please CONTACT us so we can provide more support and some
very cool ideas!
Stress Reduction Programs: (Research Summary Click here)
Casual games like Bejeweled, Peggle and other untimed games also produce stress reduction, increase in vigor and productivity. Has an angry employee ever disrupted workflow, caused absenteeism, group tension or other negative outcome - of course! Bejeweled 2 and Peggle were shown to reduce anger by 65% and 63% respectively. Among female subjects, Peggle produced the greatest anger reduction (86%) while men experienced the greatest reduction of anger while playing Bejeweled 2 (63%). What a boon to so many employees, many who bring their emotional and mental burdens from home to work. One of our main incentives for creating the FootPOWR pad and FootGaming was to enhance these already-valuable casual game outcomes to even stronger results.
This leads us to the next topic: Smoking Cessation Programs. "Stress is a major reason for relapsing into smoking," says Dr. Joseph Difranza, an addiction specialist at the University of Massachusetts. With all the crises around us these days coping via a cigarette becomes an even more compelling habit. In times of external stress - such as a recession - smoking tends to increase. We need easy to implement, fun-filled and positively 'addicting" programs, like Footgaming, more than ever.
