games on workstations

Similar situation experienced at my previous company. The damage is done from the time the person sits down; not during lunch ("let's blame the employee" mentality from HR). Your situation is a typical response from HR.
A HR initiated ergonomic plan would be the way to go. There are a lot of consultants out there who are experts in ergonomics.
In my case I suggested that the impact to morale would be greater than the affect on health. I suggested that we could use software to prompt the employee to stretch (with diagrams on the screen) every now and then (didn't Microsoft have something in their product that did this?). What happened in my case was our HR person checked that screens, chairs and keyboards were lined up properly according to ergonomic rules and that was it; pretty useless.
If someone knows of that product which prompts you to stretch please let us know.

I have removed everything from the workstations.
They have Internet, it's required for their jobs, but anything harmful has been blocked at the firewall, they aren't allowed to download via group policy, and the games are removed before the box ever hits the floor.

They will sit and play solitaire for hours if you let them...

Tell the NAZI that cracking a whip all day will NOT make people more productive.

I would bet they are also clock watchers, worrying if people are a few minutes late in the morning? But they never seem to notice if someone stays AFTER a few minutes, strange.

You sound like you are in a real camp. I would not act on this without direct marching orders from the top, and let HR take the issue to them.

If a worker is productive and gets their work done, they never hear from anyone. If their work isn't done, it doesn't matter why, see them to the door. Otherwise YOU are just creating a hostile working environment and will have a hard time retaining good workers.

Just put some ex-lax in the coffee.
That will get people up.
Start with HR because they are already full of $hit.

We have a more liberal acceptable use policy at our firm (about 25 workstations) but I would say taking away the games would be a bad idea. You have already restricted access to the huge time wasters (personal e-mail and internet) and taking away the games is not only likely to decrease productivity but increase turnover (and those numbers are ugly).

If health is a concern HR needs to develop a program for the majority of the day, leaving at lunch or playing a game at lunch isn't going to make a huge difference. Since the employees are doing it on their lunch hour (the assumption is they aren't doing it during working hours) and they aren't chewing up any other company resources in doing it, I would say let the games stay. If HR really wants to make a stink about it, let them take it to the top levels and have the CEO/President/El Jefe make the announcement.

As a matter of policy I've had my staff set the profiles on all our workstations (desktop and laptop) to have games removed. But that's purely because I have a personal bias against using business computers for game playing.

You want to play games, buy an Xbox.

On the other hand, I also recognize that my personal biases don't make me the king of the world. We have a lot of folks at my company who are road warriors, and if they want to play a few games on their laptops on the plane or in their hotel rooms I'm not inclined to tell them they can't. Upon request I'll allow the games on those machines, but we do it discreetly so it doesn't become a pervasive issue.

since the games have always been there, just block them from going onto the network and using networked play with them.

tell the hr staff that unless hr is going to institute a policy of exercise ( areobics sessions ) pull thier heads out of thier butts and worry about serious health issues.

some Japanese and Chinese firms have mandatory exercise sessions twice a day.

personally, for business only systems, I don't see why games should have been installed at all.
even on my personal systems I don't have games, as I have no interest in playing them.
my business systems naturally don't have games on them.
( my own company, all my systems are set up the same, as I'll use any for business or personal use. also, me only person with access to my systems.)

The last company I worked for F/T had me setting up network games of Ghost Recon to play for a couple of hours, someimtes at noon (then we'd all go for lunch at one) then in the afternoons on a daunting day. It became almost secondary to work a lot of the time, but hey, the boss wanted to play, I am just a mere employee, what can I say. :D

After I moved to the island to do my own thing, he would still call me daily and get me to HOST games on his network so we could allplay GR for a while.

Hearts and Solitaire was never allowed, we had MUCH better games than that. IN fact when I worked there, we actually did a few PC upgrades (bought BRAND new IBM's) for better graphics cards and processor speed to oost frame rates and detail.

It was cool actually because we'd conference speaker phone each other in our respective teams and we could all sit in our respective offices and still talk as if we were side by side. (Who needs game chat?)

This was a medium sized company, with only two offices but the largest of it's type in Western Canada.

Canadians aren't too worried about many things that seem to inundate the IT mindset in the US. Data security, as long as there's a backup tape it's ok. If th ebackup dies, last weeks will get most of the stuff back, that ws their attitude anyway. NO user policies, people could install and download whatever they wanted, if it screwed somethng up, I'd just remove it and ask them to try better to find a less buggy game next time.

The secrtary used webshots and spent a great deal of time chatting on te internet and downloading stuff, though she was very good at getting work done so it was ignored. Everyone had pretty much free reign of their PC's.

Since that time, I have worked with two clients in VERY large organizations who are the same when it comes to te network and people playing games. I find in BC, people aren't 'managed' as much as they are trusted to manage themselves. If the work is done and the numbers rise every month, the boss doesn't care less what you do. This has been a general mentality I find at ANY place I've worked since about age 17. If you put up the numbers, nobody cares how you do it.

then explain to us exactly how this contributes to the mission of any corporate entity, in any business, of any size, in any geography...you get the picture.

I'm all for blowing off a little steam every now and then...that's what personal time is for. I fail to see how or why there should be corporate sponsorship in the form of enabling computer games to do so. Call me a stuffed shirt...I go to work to, guess what, work. I assume everyone else does the same.

That opens the door for nothing but trouble....games have no place on Corporate PC's or workstations.

Our policy includes removing the MS games and (additional) software restrictions.

After all, the equipement and time belong to the corporation NOT the individual.

Call me crazy but most people go to work to do just that.

At a previous company where I worked I oversold a certain model of unit and the response was to stop production of that unit and go with the domestic ones as they made a better profit. Firstly on the sale and then on spare parts which where required by the domestic units doing and industrial job. They just keep breaking so the company was making a killing on spare parts which they didn't have many of anyway. Apparently their solution was if it broke instead of having the spares available sell them a new one which you knew was going to do exactly the same thing within 6 months.

The parent company actually stopped making my preferred unit because their production line couldn't handle the demand so they stopped making them sold off the manufacturing rights to a Spanish company who is still making the things and is selling them without a problem even today 25 years latter. Granted they have been improved over that period of time but they are still the same basic machine with a few goodies added on.

Col ]:)

But unfortunately I work as a consultant for small to medium bushiness so I have to give at least one person at each business Admin Rights or I would be called in every time that they have to install a upgrade {Actually that's not such a bad idea} now if there where only more than 24 hours per day. :)

Col ]:)

If your quota was 50 widgets and you sold 60, when we had our sales meeting and i asked how many you would sell the next month, I would expect you to say 70. Thus you are expected to progress.

You seem to be taking it a little too literally.
If you tell me you are going to achieve a certain sales figure, (after all I expect reps to tell ME what they will achieve and I expect it to be a constant improvement or I want to know why not), and you do, then anything else is gravy. I don't care how long it takes you and no I wouldn't think any differently if you hit a fair target in one day or two weeks, that's poor management really, reps will set acceptable figures that include a gradual increase as they improve. If they manage to succeed in reaching an ever increasing and challenging goal then they should be rewarded and not pushed, that's a HUGE mistake that sends too many sales reps packing.

They KNOW I expect them to push themselves, but not kill themselves.

Take automotive for example. When you get a repair, the service manager looks at a book and it has a fixed estimate of time as provided by the Aitomotive Dealers Association. This will tell him exactly what he is allowed to quote for labour. IF the mechanic does a 3 hour job in 2, YOU still pay for 3. The mechanic is not to be seen as anything less than superior in this case.

In MANY shops, the mechanic will be paid comission based on jobs over and above the alloted time for the day. Ex.

I have 3 jobs Scheduled, the total time in the book is 7.5 hours.

I manage to finish them in 5 hours and accept 2.5 hours of additional work, I am then paid comission on the extra work. The shop STILL gets paid for the 7.5 hours originally scheduled PLUS they gained extra time and income.

But after that initial 5 hours where I have filled a full dance card for the day, I can still go home with pay in most cases.

Should me employer think less of me for not working the full 7.5 hours even though he was paid for it? He may encourage me to stay for more though, which is done by offering comisison.

In the case of sales, once a rep hit a predetermined quota, the money increases on his end, THAT is his incentive. Most work for it, othes will 'pad' the next month and just sit on deals, while playing games and making the odd follow up call or popping out for a quick close.

As for poor business practice and your pathetic comparisson to comunist Russia, the company I was specifically talkng about is the largest growing and most successful in it's field and has been longer than any if its competitors.

For our laptop users, since we anticipate them bored on planes, we allow games. Just the standard one that come with XP. We don't let the users install their own.

For workstations that never leave the office, we don't allow games. They can go to Yahoo for that if they want to...

Please, please do remove the games. Obviously there are no adults who can actually manage to not abuse the games. What a sad world we are in!!! It is up to us as IT people to make sure that there is no enjoyment at the work place. NONE!! Work, darn you!!! And, let's talk about those bathroom breaks...you should be working. And breaktime....don't forget about breaktime...if you are in the company building, you must be productive at all times...obviously if you do not leave the building at breaktime then you are not on break...GET BACK TO WORK!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhh....the control.

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Sheesh!! Let me guess, next HR will be wondering why there is so much turnover. What a silly thing to do. If you treat people like children, then they act like children. If the expectation is set to not abuse the games and play then during times when they are supposed to be working, then what is the harm? There are always a few cruddy people who mess it up for the rest of us.

Wow, must be a miserable place to exist. I feel your pain, I used to work in a union shop.

And to make matters worse, your the messenger getting (hated, loathed, spit on) for doing as the master on high dictates.

Where I am it pretty hands off, and I wouldn't have the authority unless handed down from a few steps higher to do something. And as they are just as guilty the last thing they want to do is start pointing fingers. Keeps things "interesting", to say the least.

Good luck there. (is that a growl at the end of your user name or u a girl?)

They expect you to stay there 24/7/52 and even carry a phone on you when you go to the toilet. You are expected to stay there while on any form of break and never allowed to leave the office unless it is work related.

Unless of course if you are working for a Government Department then it is anything goes and the least amount of time that you actually spend in at work the better it looks. ;)

Col ]:)

As the average U.S. work week of 49 hours stretches to equal that of the dark ages at the turn of the last century, almost all of us spend more of our waking hours in the workplace than in any other single location. For all practical purposes this is where we live.

It stands to reason that this place must be regarded as home. We need comfort, decoration, entertainment, and pets. Decades of experimentation have proven consistently that every one of those things reduces stress, boosts morale, and thereby increases both output and quality.

Ever notice how the Theory X managers who somehow have still managed to retain control of this country never talk about the quality of work, or even its quantity, but only the amount of time devoted to it?

Every year the U.S. comes more to resemble the old Soviet Bloc. I remember the workers' credo over there: "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us."

Taking away my toys isn't the same thing as getting me to do better work.

Systems owned by a company are to be used by company employees for company sanctioned activities. As the IT Manager you need to lock systems down. If people around (or above) you feel that they can treat the systems like they are their own systems then you may end up finding personal software installed.

I would lock them down if i were you, assert authority of your network. Make sure the "higher ups" know you are taking the iniative to protect the employees and the companies systems. Do you really think they are only playing games on their Lunch Breaks?

You are arrested for the future crime of thinking your co-worker was a dumb poopy head.

You are also sentence for staring at the pretty, huge, swelling, heaving, moist, golden breasts of the receptionist.

Your company has some really strict policies. No personal email, no internet use, no games.

I manage a small network of 50 users. We allow minimal personal email and internet use. People know that all activity is logged and monitored and for the most part they keep it down to a minimum (except for one or two).

I find it hard to believe that your HR person is interested in employee's health. I would think they are more interested in productivity. Aren't there government guidelines that say every hour, a person who does data entry should get up and walk away from their computer at least for a couple of minutes?

We had the same dilemma with computer games. My HR person told me to remove all of the games, even solitaire, from the computers because some people were doing that instead of working. We don't have a specific lunch hour time, so it was hard to tell if people were goofing off or on lunch. Other people that saw them playing games thought it was ok to play games if they saw someone else doing it at a time that might not be considered a lunch hour to them.

In the end, except for one or two people who never go out for lunch, people don't play games. They still use the phone, the internet or email. I think you have to allow something for morale as long as its kept to a minimum.

If the users are really doing data entry all day
and choosing to play games on the computer in
their spare time, they have probably already
decided that it is too inconvenient to engage in
physical exercise and that what they really need
is mental exercise. If it doesn't interfere with
their work and doesn't present a risk to the
equipment, data, or programs, let them play. If
you need to control it, you could remove the
games from the workstations and set up a remote
control (i.e VNC) linux game server that
disables the games during working hours. Just
don't wind up spending all of your time being a
games administrator.

I would like to see how the HR's philosophies in the past have worked at restricting off the clock behavior have affected performance, morale, culture and other factors of the business. I have heard of scheduled excercise programs and other team and co-worker relationship building and fortification programs in the past. The stories usually begin with the activity, the intended increases in beneficial effects and then some reels of the activities in progress, ie.. the utopia of wallyworld. But seldom have I seen such stories or examples carried out to their ends in an objective manner, the fallout, potential cultural ostrisization of dissenting workers or the promised increases in productivity morale, blah, blah, blah...

What of the "smokers rights" issues for instance if management designates the entire facility a non-smoking area where HR then issues restrictive break policies. I have seen examples where entities have been sued over this last example. Yes I am a smoker but no, I prefer to keep it away from non-smokers.

Having been in charge of crews in the past, I have kept a working attitude on the clock, but have taken a crew out for a dinner or for a few brewski's during a conference, and not the bk lounge or golden arches cafe either. If my crew kicks a.. on the job then I kick twice as much a.. at making them feel appreciated for the work and dedication.

We actually used to have 20' competitions at my local a few years back. 20' away, overhand as hard as you can. Bullseyes for shots of Johnny Blue, the bartender would lose ALL the time. :D

By midnight we would be planting them in the ceiling beams, it was a 20' by 10' danger zone that nobody dared cross while a half dozen of us threw arrows.

Ahhh, the good dole days! :)

on a business workstation?

Even default Windows Games. Though the original Minesweeper was actually included to train people to single and double click and the original Solitaire was to teach drag and drop - I think we know how to do that now..... :-)

As far the health risk is concerned, I wonder if they were banging their heads with the keyboards, would she come to you again? (because a keyboard is computer equipment).

As far as the wrong message is concerned, I strongly believe that policies are to be set and followed by people, not machinery.

best regards

Dennis

In the UK, Friday 25 February has been declared Work Your Proper Hours Day.

Workers are being urged to send managers a "bossagram" pointing out they are doing unpaid overtime. The idea is to mark this Friday's Work Your Proper Hours Day, being held to highlight the UK's long hours culture.

The Trades Union Congress claims that five million people regularly do unpaid overtime, giving employers ?23bn of free work each year.

The union has calculated people doing unpaid overtime are in effect working for nothing until February 25.

More info: http://www.workorspoon.com/show_article.asp?ID=982

Unless the company actually has a Fitness Program instituted and available for employees to use during lunch then I don't understand the "increasing health risk" concern.

I do the same thing. When I only get a 30 minute lunch break I just eat at the desk and play a game to break up the intensity and monotony of my work.

If I'm on hold, which is pretty common today, I'll play a game while I'm waiting.

HR needs to calm down and leave the workers alone. These games can also increase a persons familiarity with the computer which can increase productivity.

I went through a similar situation and was instructed to remove all games from all workstations. That lasted about 2 hours and I was instructed to put the games back on the computers.

We have about 2500 employed and only a a 1/3 or better have Network access, I was asked shortly after got in the Dept to find out how to get rid of those pesky games. Microsoft tell you to go to ADD/REMOVE programs and add/remove Windows components. However there is a little more to it than just that. There is an inf file in the root driectory of Windows 2000 and some XP versions that have that option hid.

That location being C:\WINDOWS or WINNT depending on which operating system you are using C:\WINDOWS\inf\sysoc.inf. You have to do some editing to that file. As gruff as it may sound you not paid to play games but to do a job. My experience with HR is they play enough without having PC games to keep them occupied. Play games at home. We have fun our dept from competitiveness to other means and other properties in our corp. gives us enough challange without wasting time playing on the PC. That is what you have Playstations and XBOX's at home for.

What ever happened to the phrase that "our Employees are our most important asset!" HR typically hasn't a clue and assumes employees are time stealing grunts (their police tactics disquised as a health concern).

The real "fear" is that someone may play when they should work. As long as the play is confined to the employee's lunch period let it be. Would you prevent them from exercising, playing cards or other diversions during their own time because they mmight become fatigued and thereby reduce their productivity when they return to their workstation? Get a life! Be concerned with the important things.

I found if I use Group Policies to restrict games. This is not enough. It only stops them from accessing traditionally. Smart users can go to the command line and run the executable. So not installing games at all is the best method.
Sounds like HR is missing the picture on this one concerning health. Duh!!

I think it depends a lot on the culture of the organization. Some are more open than others.

Currenty we allow the Windows Games during appropriate time. Most of the users (production work) are not a computer all day long. During a break, some choose to smoke and eat. Some like to play cards.

I would rather have them play the games than look around for something else on the computer. This could be tipped off trying to find the games that are turned off.

Nobody is going to hack the system / network when the next guy is waiting to play card games.

For now it stays.

about some of the post on this thread is the glee with which some people have talked about locking down 'their' system. 'we pay you so we own you' ' play games at home etc.' We are the Borg and you will be assimilated' AAARRGGHHH!
I am a human being. If I work real hard to get my assignments done, I need to rest later. I work better in spurts.
Some prople are sprinters, some run marathons. Each job has it's own requirements and if you require people to work in a cookie cutter fashion, you get cookie cutter results. If thats what you want, fine.
I have a life. If youwant me to think about your work on my time-cellphone etc., then my life bleeds into yours.
Rules are one thing, attitdes are another. Funny how the lock it down lockset approach to "increase productivity" is followed by extra work that becomes part of the job description, dissapearing bonuses, shrinking commisions. etc. My personal favorite was when as system engineer it was slow, I was asked why I wan't making cold calls, out of the phone book, to drum up business. No training, no list to tools, just do something.

How 'bout this: kill off the games-during-lunchtime, but let the employees chip in for a network license for Doom (or Quake or whatever is fun on a network), and host a game night once a week, after hours. The network is not being used at that time, and they would probably love it!

And I agree that HR has too much time on its hands. I doubt that the health risk is the real reason behind the comment - most RSI shows up long after the employee has left the company, if your turnover in Data Entry is anything like what we have here.

I too am the network admin for a small network and our company policy allows the playing of games at workstation as a way to relieve stress and take a break from a busy day. We have found it to be good therapy. Our HR manager has no problem with this practice and agrees that employees need some way to relieve stress and they should be able to do it in a way they enjoy.
charliec

I wonder if HR are so crazy on health when it comes to organising eye-tests for their data entry staff, latest ergonomic seating, ensuring adequate breaks at the appropriate times etc..
Provided the manager of the data entry section is happy that production is not being effected then play on..