Corporate Training: The Game

The term Corporate Training may not elicit excitement or spark celebration throughout an office, but it’s still an important part of a business practice to teach employees in both the new and old ways of the company operating procedures. Since training is so important, why not make it interesting and have employees look forward to learning something new about the company? Interactive corporate training sessions would not only hold participant attention, but it would also increase their retention of the information given, and may even swell feelings of pride in the company.

Many companies have already adapted different training games and teambuilding exercises into their corporate training sessions to make it interactive. While corporate picnics, trust exercises, and conferences in exotic locations may boost employee morale and dedication to a company, these activities may not succeed in teaching employees all they need to know about the business to pass certain regulations on compliance. When learning about company policies related to security, harassment, and standard operating procedures, a free breakfast before an information session won’t cut it.

Turn Corporate Training into Corporate Gaming

There are some companies who have already incorporated corporate training videos into their training sessions. Employees would watch a video that may be synced with a PowerPoint presentation and then be asked certain questions afterward to test knowledge gained. While this idea far exceeds the standard browsing of a company handbook or daydreaming during a supervisor’s lecture, an interactive corporate training video can be trumped by an interactive corporate training game.

Imagine combining all that’s interesting about corporate picnics, trust exercises, conferences, and training videos and adding a gaming feature. Having participants interact with each other in a social setting while role playing real-life situations in order to learn about company procedures will not only enhance learning, but will inspire participants to learn more.

More and more video games are telling stories about the characters they feature. Whether on a quest for treasure or out for vengeance, gamers are starting to connect to video games through storylines. The same can be transitioned into the corporate training arena. All companies have goals to reach and certain situations to work through in order to achieve these goals. Whether interacting with customers, co-workers, or clients, scenario storylines discussing the right and wrong way to handle these situations will better prepare employees when faced with it in real life.

Corporate Training Game Production

No matter if you’re teaching employees how to troubleshoot customer issues or resolving inter-office dilemmas, all can be achieved through a game. Keep the following three points in mind when producing a training game:

• Tell a story: use the beginning, middle, and end result of a situation to give a better idea of what best practices to use.
• Use role-play: have participants act out true-to-life scenarios to have them go through the motions to learn what to do.
• Make it fun: incorporating an enjoyable gaming feature to learn important information will not only increase interest, but also boost retention rates.

Before production of training game:

1. Pick the training topic
2. Come up with real-life scenarios around this topic
3. Draft a script that will cover how this scenario starts, how the issues may progress, and the best way to resolve it
4. Pick key points to highlight that will teach employees the standard procedures of the company
5. Allow for breaks in the game for participants to make a decision (either by question and answer or to manipulate their characters or other features)

With these goals in mind, you can take your game idea to a production company to make your training game a reality. Dynamic Digital Advertising is one such production company that’s equipped with the technology to create a memorable training experience. Through the use of video production and animation, the storyline can unfold with recognizable characters and include all you need to successfully hold attention and increase retention. See for yourself how fun and effective corporate training can be through the use of interactive training games. Contact DDA Video today (215-355-6442/info@ddacorp.com).