The Play Based Organization

Do games and play hold the keys to a better employee experience?

The rules for engagement in business and in life are changing...and employees demand to be more active in creating these rules. Employee disengagement is the result of disease in a company's culture... and business leaders need to understand the symptoms displayed by employees to help keep them engaged. Employee engagement - that is, having employees who are emotionally and psychologically attached to their job and the workplace - is critical to building positive relationships and performing well in the 21st century.

We used to play and gamification throughout our lives for self-development -- and often stayed more engaged, didn't we? Gamification and adult play in the workplace have therefore become hot topics among companies seeking to re-engage and motivate staff. There is a strong case to be made for bringing play and games back into our lives and specifically into the workplace. Not sure if play really matters? Look no further than what your employees do during their break time or when off the clock.

In this book, The Play Based Organization: Leveraging Individual Creativity for Organizational, Outcome-Based Innovation, Dr. Cleveland explores the dissonance between employee and leader factors and actions that influence their willingness and ability to navigate the workplace. She identifies factors, accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, that calls for the need to redefine both the employee description and the workplace. Dr. Cleveland shares a practical and innovative framework for the successful application of play and gamification strategies as threads for building employee and leader creativity and innovation that helps meet personal and organizational outcomes. In other words, this book can help leaders and employees alike evaluate and implement play systemically at your organization in order to not only get more from each other, but for your staff to get more satisfaction and joy out of life as a whole.