It was only a matter of time before the question was going to come up, and I was asked it this morning. The exchange went something like this:
‘David, is there anything that I can do about our employees playing games while at work?’
I looked up and asked ‘what kind of games?’
The mention of games in the workplace always grabs my interest. As a commercial and workplace lawyer of twenty years, some of my more ‘interesting’ matters have involved games in the workplace.
As a junior lawyer, I can recall an occasion when a workplace game of ‘naked cream cake wrestling’ generated enough paperwork to fell a small forest. But ask me about this another time.
The answer this morning was much more sedate but topical.
‘It’s that Pokémon thingy. There are a couple of staff into it and they are walking around the office glued to their phones. At first it was quite funny but now I am tired of it.’
Needless to say, my client was not Nintendo so chasing ‘Charmanders’ or ‘Bulbasaurs’ around the office each morning was not an essential component of their employees’ workplace duties. Understandably, my client as the payer of those employees’ salary was right to be upset.
I said ‘of course you can, explained why and how, and swiftly brought an end to their fun.‘ Normality to that workplace was hopefully restored, and the point was made that you really don’t ‘have to catch ‘em all’ despite how the song goes.
Okay, so I have joked about this a little, but Pokémon Go does throw up some serious workplace issues.
Firstly, there is the obvious loss of productivity at work. While I, of course encourage better relations in the workplace as a means of promoting a harmonious work environment, inevitably when employees are spending time at work engaged in activities which don’t entail working, then this means productivity falls. The arrangement is quite simple to understand. The employee performs work for the employer. They are paid for performing work. Catching make believe digital characters eats into to a period when the employee is being paid for work they are not doing thus undermining the employment contract and their right to be paid.
Anything that distracts from the performance of an employee can be addressed by the performance management policy in the workplace. Failure to follow workplace instructions (in this instance to work), results in warnings, results in dismissal. It is the same process regardless of the cause of the underperformance, however, try explaining that you were hunting a ‘Charizard’ to your wife or partner when you lose your job. It isn’t going to be easy.
Secondly, I posted about a week ago about how key sports broadcasts can also affect employee attendance. The same could be said of playing video games. I heard a guy interviewed on the radio a day or so ago, who joked that he had turned up nearly an hour late for work that morning because he had been catching Pokémon and simply ‘lost track of the time.’ He thought it hilarious. I can hear the laughter in Centrelink as I type this.
Now I understand this gaming, time loss phenomena. When younger, I lost many hours of my own time playing video games. Video games are time machines; they steal hours from you that you didn’t realise you had spent and never get back. Note however how I said ‘own time.’ This is the key to it. Don’t lose the time when you have commitments to others.
It is for this reason that they need to be played at times when you are not supposed to be working and also ideally, not when you are supposed to be sleeping. They are fun and enjoyable but good games usually take time to master. Hence, don’t play them at work or on route to work. It won’t end well.
If an employee turns up late for work because they have been playing Pokémon Go, then they can expect to be treated the same as another employee late for work for a similar equally less legitimate reason. A new craze is not a legitimate reason for poor punctuality.
The same applies to employees unable to perform due to tiredness caused by late night trips to the Pokestops (I know, trust me it is a thing). Consistency of treatment is a core aspect of workplace law. These employees will be treated the same as others who are underperforming. Indeed failure to do so undermines an employer’s performance management policies.
A third and final concern is with the use of employer-owned and BYO devices to play this game. In the US, the International Association of IT Asset Managers is calling for a ban on the installation and use of Pokémon Go on workplace devices. It has recognised the potential danger to system security that the game presents.
Most employers have strict policies on what software can be downloaded onto a corporate device and any policy is unlikely to permit gaming downloads such as Pokémon. Downloads to work devices should be limited to work-related purposes. It never ceased to amaze me how many people I see in the workplaces I visit catching ‘crystals’ on their workplace PC’s. My point is these policies exist but how often are they enforced?
There is another important reason to have and to enforce such policies. Already there have been reports of unauthorised apps and downloads from third parties appearing on download sites. The permissions that come with these apps may be wider than the users fully understand. I have a close friend who specialises in corporate data security and have watched her demonstrate with ease the frequency with which hidden coding is included in free downloads. It is frightening the amount of access to your data that a free torch app acquires without you realising. I won’t begin to suggest that I fully understand the perils of hidden coding and the ‘dark net’ however there are many who do, and I trust their judgement on this.
On a much more basic level that I do understand, do employers really want their employees walking the streets potentially late at night with their workplace device in their hands?
News reports have already included muggings in the US where individuals were lured to remote sites through the use of the game. I appreciate employees are expected to answer their phones during their daily excursions away from their desks into the great outdoors, however, I think we can agree most of us would expect them to put away their phones after so doing.
Before I hear the cries of ‘killjoy’ (it’s been said many times before), I have nothing against the game. I have a young family and don’t doubt that at some stage I may find myself playing it. I just feel that like many things, there is a time and a place, and that place isn’t work or with work equipment.
And just in case you are wondering, Google gave me those names, my personal nerdness stops at Star Wars and Game of Thrones.