Let The Games Begin - how one company used games to motivate employees - Brief Article

Nation's Business, March, 1999 by Robyn Sacks

Robyn Sacks is president of RMR & Associates, Inc., in Rockville, Md. She prepared this account with Contributing Editor Susan Biddle Jaffe. Readers with insights on starting or running a business are invited to contribute to this column. Write to: Entrepreneur's Notebook Nation's Business, 1615 H Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20062-2000.

In the mid-1990s, my advertising, marketing, and public-relations firm hit a wall. RMR & Associates, Inc., had grown from three people in 1987 to 17 in 1994, and they were managed by department rather than being all under my direct supervision. It was obvious that the positive vibes among the staff were being replaced by whining.

As I listened to gripes such as "Why do I have to do this when it's not part of my job?" I realized that these complaints had less to do with specific tasks than with our corporate culture-or lack thereof. During our growth spurt, we had lost the intimate, we're-all-in-this-together mind-set that had been so natural when we were small and in a sinkor-swim mode.

We lacked a company road map to let everyone know not only where the firm was headed but what bridges needed to be crossed and the role that each individual's efforts would play in helping RMR & Associates win the race.

That led us to adopt the idea of turning business into a game. In short, we began looking at the goals of the company and individual departments as competitive games-complete with scoreboards, prizes, and awards.

The results have been dramatic. Today RMR has $15 million in annual billings, compared with about $9 million in the early 1990s, before the games began. The firm's 25 employees have an average tenure of five years. Moreover, we have developed a team of dedicated achievers who don't need to ask why they must do something and who know what is needed to achieve company and personal goals.

Our strategies for improving morale and work ethic can be applied to many young companies. Here are some points to remember when refining your game:

Keep your players' eyes on the prize. To truly see the value of victory, people need to know the stakes. As part of our managerial shift, we opened our books to employees. With the exception of individual salaries, everyone knows on a regular basis where the company stands financially.

Game objectives must be meaningful and measurable. Creating games with specific targets is the best way to focus employees and achieve rapid results. Our games involve meeting work-performance targets: completing certain amounts of work in set periods of time, for example.

We set our targets based on company goals and industrywide standards. This not only helps us determine each worker's contribution to the firm but allows workers to see exactly how they stack up against one another and the competition.

Don't be afraid to cut players-even your starters-if they aren't into the game. A competitive, achievement-driven work environment isn't for everyone. But for the games to succeed, everyone must want to play; anyone who doesn't will only be an impediment, no matter how talented they are.

Be creative and have fun. Our first five-year companywide game is dubbed "The Northbound Train" and even has a theme song ("Love Train") and "railroad cars" on the walls to measure our progress. When employees win an individual or team game, they get gold tokens redeemable for prizes; each month there is a presidential award recognizing the employee who goes above and beyond the call of duty

The ultimate goal of the games is to empower workers and motivate them to solve job-related problems. When everyone understands how important their job is and knows the cost of failure and the value of success, a company has a foundation on which it can overcome obstacles, succeed, and grow.