In an article covered last week, HRSBT touched on social media and the new fad, Pokémon GO. Much to this author’s dismay, no one has been fired … yet, but a few websites are reporting workplace policies that are both for and against the game.
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The Netherland blog site, thenextweb.com (TNW), is reporting its company has a policy in place that actually allows employees to play the game on the job! The employees of TNW are super lucky that the boss is an avid Pokémon hunter himself!
Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten, realizes the importance of exercise and how it can keep your workforce engaged and healthy. That’s why he sent the following message to his employees:
“Hello team, to make sure you all stay healthy and get enough exercise we’ve decided to make it mandatory for all TNW employees (interns and freelancers are exempt) to play at least 30 minutes of Pokémon Go a day. Preferably right after lunch, as the health benefits of getting exercise are strongest then.
(If you have a medical reason for not being able to comply please contact HR).
Happy Hunting!”
What health benefits is he referring to, you ask? According to Healthy Food House, “if you walk just 100 steps after you [eat] a meal, you’ll notice a huge improvement in your overall wellbeing.”
Unfortunately, one company in the United States does not agree with TNW. Boeing, an aerospace company, has banned the game after one employee almost got hurt playing it. It is also reported that the game has been installed on more than 100 company phones. In response to the craze, Boeing set up a “software blacklist” for the app, and released a statement saying:
“Due to the popularity of Pokémon Go and users not being able to make the conscious decision to not play Pokémon at work – we had a near miss for a user getting hurt while playing the game. Due to that, we had to react and disable the Pokémon app from all devices – we had over 100 active installs of that application. The blacklist removes all that we consider to be carrier bloatware and now also the Pokémon Go app.”
Clearly, the safety risks outweigh the health risks associated with Pokémon GO, at least when it comes to Boeing! Fortunately for Boeing, its IT department is able to nip this craze in the bud, but it still won’t help if employees download the app on their personal phones. A proper bring-your-own-device (BYOD) policy should help keep your workplace safe, or healthy, depending on your feelings about the game.