Even if it is a game, someone may be amazed that it is a business simulation actually used in some work environments as a training course to become an office manager . The Learn2Lead game was developed by the CNR-ISTC (National Research Council - Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies) of the University of Naples "Federico II".
The player is put in a realistic situation where some people who work in the same office have to be managed.
The goal is to carry out the work on time, assigning them equally to the employees trying to balance forces and exploit teamwork.
In assigning tasks, you need to know the people who are part of the team and exploit their skills in order to optimize time, keeping motivation high and reducing the stress component.
The head of the office must ensure that he achieves the assigned goals in order not to be fired.
The game was therefore studied according to the principles of corporate organization and human resources management and the proposed situation is typical of consultancy groups and offices of private and public companies, banks and post offices of any size.
The model developed by the game brings different results depending on the choices that are made and therefore different types of business management can be experimented to understand which one can be the most productive.
The game is online via a browser (the Unity plugin is required) and you compete against other players to see who is the most capable leader.
To start the simulation, registration to the free site on the site //www.learn2lead.unina.it is required
After reading the first instructions, you can start with managing a job for an employee.
The first level is therefore trivial and simple: just assign the job to the employee for an entire week to reach the goal.
To go fast, just press the time button that allows time to pass.
At the top there is the task to be carried out, the difficulty of which is highlighted by the icon and the date by which it must be completed.
Depending on the work to be done, assignment to one or more employees must be done.
Each employee has a different personality (a star icon for the
result orientation, heart-shaped for passion and lightning for power) and different values: ability, workload, satisfaction, motivation and stress .
Depending on the values, it will be necessary to be careful to assign the jobs to be carried out in a coherent way, trying to exploit those who have greater skills for the most difficult jobs, leaving the simplest ones to the less good employee.
Clearly this will bring greater stress for the first and low motivation for the second, therefore, during the week, it should be important to maintain a certain balance to reach the goal.
A good manager should know how to enhance human resources and, at the same time, optimize time.
At the end of the tutorial, we move on to the real game and the management of a realistic office.
Each level is described in detail and the typical psycho-social aspects of an office are also highlighted.
As it is written in the game's information sheet (completely in Italian), this is an experimental phase and the developers will adapt the game according to user feedback.
Apparently, Learn2Lead was born from the work of a team of psychologists, trainers and developers and the simulation model will be used by training schools and companies for internal courses.
For the moment, you can play freely and climb the rankings of the players trying to become real leaders and uncompromising office managers.
