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To find out whether workplace gaming improves cross-generational communication, measure communication satisfaction and competence before and after play, observe how people interact during the game, and ask participants what changed. Treat completion, enjoyment and productivity as separate outcomes—not proof that communication improved. Wong et al. put the distinction plainly: “Given that the intervention was explicitly designed to structure and enhance intergenerational dialogue, this study focuses on proximal communication outcomes, specifically communication competence and communication satisfaction, as direct indicators of interaction quality.” A single game session cannot establish a lasting effect on isolation, retention or productivity.
What should you measure when employees play together?
Start with the outcome closest to the intervention: whether colleagues from different age groups communicate more comfortably and skillfully. Use a small set of complementary measures rather than relying on a post-game “Was it fun?” survey. The scales below address communication at the individual level, organizational climate, and game experience; behavioral observation can show what happened in the room.
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|---|---|---|---|
| Hecht Interpersonal Communication Satisfaction Inventory items | Satisfaction with conversation, including whether talk flowed and felt enjoyable | Before and immediately after the session | Wong et al. used four selected items on a six-point scale; this is a selected-item set, not the full inventory. |
| Interpersonal Communication Competence Scale (ICCS) items | Self-reported perspective-taking, awareness, conversational flow, topic management and attention to what is not said | Before and immediately after the session | Rubin and Martin (1994); Wong et al. used six selected items on a four-point scale. |
| Workplace Intergenerational Climate Scale (WICS) | Workplace attitudes and conditions across age groups, including stereotypes, contact, inclusion and retention | At baseline and again weeks later, if the claim concerns workplace climate | King and Bryant (2017); a climate measure, not a post-game satisfaction form. |
| Video or observer event-sampling | Talk during play, including verbal exchange, biography-related conversation, turn-taking, withdrawal and shared laughter | During the session, with a defined codebook | Zahn et al. (2022) demonstrate a method in a Swiss retirement home; that setting and small sample do not establish a workplace effect. |
| Game-experience questions and platform analytics | Enjoyment, perceived invitation to communicate, participation and completion | After play or throughout a digital learning journey | Useful implementation checks; not direct evidence of improved communication competence. |
The first two are the primary session-level communication outcomes in Wong et al. Their selected satisfaction statements were “I felt I could talk about topic with the other person” (adapted from “anything”), “I am generally satisfied with the conversations,” “I enjoy the conversations,” and “These conversations flow smoothly.” Participants rated agreement from 1 (extremely disagree) to 6 (extremely agree); the four answers were summed. For competence, the six ICCS statements used a four-point agreement scale. They cover putting oneself in another person’s shoes; knowing what another person feels; being understood; smooth topic shifts; negotiating topics; and noticing not only what a person says but also what they do not say.
Use the same wording and response options at both time points, and document any adaptation. A locally edited item can help participants understand the question, but changing a scale may make scores harder to compare with published results. The study’s selected items offer a practical starting point; they should not be presented as a newly validated workplace questionnaire.
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How do you tell communication change from engagement?
Keep participation and communication in separate columns of the evaluation. Engagement tells you whether employees showed up, took part or completed a game; communication measures whether interactions felt or behaved differently. Both matter to implementation, but one cannot stand in for the other.
Proximal outcomes: the first thing a game can plausibly change
Communication satisfaction and competence are proximal because a dialogue game can directly shape the conversation people have while playing. In Wong et al.’s 2026 Hong Kong tabletop dialogue-game study, mean satisfaction rose from 18.57 (SD 3.31) to 21.34 (SD 1.87); the reported mean difference was −2.76 (95% CI −3.66 to −1.87), with the negative sign reflecting baseline-minus-post scoring. The study reported a Cohen d of 0.745 for satisfaction and 0.377 for communication competence. Mean competence rose from 17.62 (SD 2.73) to 18.66 (SD 2.33), with a baseline-minus-post mean difference of −1.04 (95% CI −1.71 to −0.37).
Those figures belong to a community healthy-aging game, not a corporate HR intervention. The trial enrolled 81 people; 68 completed intervention and evaluation (84% response), comprising 23 young adults aged 18–39, 14 middle-aged adults aged 40–64 and 31 older adults aged 65 or above. Participants met in 19 groups of three to five, with at least one person from each age band in every group. The game used Cantonese and addressed health dialogue. The sample was 82.4% female. These are important context differences from teams of colleagues playing at work.
Subgroup results also caution against relying on an overall mean. Middle-aged participants had a satisfaction effect size of d=1.131. For competence, the older-adult subgroup was the only one with a statistically significant change (mean difference −1.32). Wong et al. concluded: “The intergenerational dialogue tabletop game provided an enjoyable platform for cross-generational dialogue and enhanced each age group’s communication competence, allowing participants to contribute and learn from one another.” For a workplace evaluation, report the overall result and the subgroup pattern; do not hide a null or uneven result behind an average.
Engagement and completion: evidence that the intervention was delivered
A post-session game-experience block can ask whether the game was fun, encouraged intergenerational communication, improved relevant knowledge, satisfied participants with its mission-card design, and met their overall expectations. Wong et al. also used a 0–10 engagement item. Such questions help determine whether people experienced the intervention as intended. Attendance, completed missions and platform completion show exposure, not skill change.
Sanofi’s “Jornada de Gerações” (Generations Journey) was a corporate learning journey for mixed-age teams of four, delivered through a browser-based learning experience platform. Its three themed games addressed age prejudice, the benefits of collaboration and initiatives for employees over 50. Pistono and Baptista reported a 96% completion rate from platform analytics and participant reflections. That is a useful completion result for that program, not a communication effect size or a universal target. The authors called for “mixed-method evaluations” in future work.
Distal outcomes: claims that need more than a one-off game
Isolation, retention, productivity and customer outcomes sit farther from the game session. They may matter to an organization, but they can also be influenced by management, workload, job design and workplace inclusion. Measure them separately, specify them in advance if they are part of the program’s intended impact, and use a follow-up period appropriate to the claim. Wong et al. explicitly focused on proximal communication outcomes rather than treating a short intervention as evidence of reduced social isolation. Their definition was: “Social isolation is defined as the objective absence or insufficiency of meaningful and sustained communication.”
How can you observe communication while people play?
Self-report tells you how participants experienced a conversation; observation can reveal who spoke, how the discussion unfolded and whether people withdrew or talked across age groups. If privacy, consent and staffing allow it, use video or trained observers with an agreed event-sampling codebook.
Code interaction, not just the final score
Zahn et al. (2022) video-recorded game sessions and sampled verbal and nonverbal events. Their categories included game-related and biography-related talk and laughing together. In a Swiss retirement-home field trial involving 10 seniors (mean age 84.8 years, SD 5.9), they analyzed 30 sequences of 20 minutes. Creative mode produced more verbal communication than cooperative mode (P=.04; Cohen f=0.611) and more biography-related communication (P=.03; r=0.707). Competitive mode produced more laughing together; the overall nonverbal difference was P=.02 (Cohen f=0.758).
This does not show that one mode is best for every workplace. It shows that the game format changes what a communication measure may detect. A creative activity may prompt more personal and verbal exchange; a competitive activity may produce shared laughter. Decide which behaviors fit your objective before play, and record the mode so you can interpret the results.
A 2025 sequential analysis of intergenerational digital-game-design collaboration offers another useful process lens. It studied nine young adults (mean age 21.22) and seven older adults (mean age 62.33). High-performing groups had more balanced, direct exchanges; lower-performing groups showed digression and conflict-related withdrawal, especially among older participants. A workplace observer can therefore track who gets a turn, whether exchanges are reciprocal, whether someone withdraws, and whether the group returns to its task—not only whether the team finishes first.
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Make the observation workable and consistent
- Define each behavior in advance. For example, specify what counts as a turn, a biography-related comment, a withdrawal or a shared laugh.
- Use the same coding rules for every team and game mode. If possible, have two observers code a subset independently, discuss disagreements and refine the codebook before analyzing the full set.
- Record the team’s age composition and any facilitation or diversity primer. These factors can shape interaction and should not be lost when results are summarized.
- Obtain appropriate consent, explain how recordings will be stored and who can access them, and avoid collecting more identifiable material than the evaluation requires.
The last item is practical evaluation guidance, not a finding that video is required. If recording is not suitable, trained observers can use a structured event sheet, though they may miss exchanges while facilitating or taking notes.
What does workplace evidence say about mixed-age teams?
Workplace findings do not support a simple promise that putting generations together automatically improves communication. One workplace escape-room study found mixed-generation teams less successful at problem-solving than same-generation teams, while the community tabletop study found improved self-reported communication after a game that supplied conversation topics. These studies examine different settings, interventions and outcomes; together, they make a case for measuring interaction rather than assuming a benefit.
Escape-room simulation: a useful warning about friction
Richards, Becker and Stollings-Holder (2024) studied 60 employees—10% of a Southeastern U.S. utility workforce—in an escape-room exercise. Intergenerational teams were less successful at problem-solving than same-generation teams. A 30-minute generational-diversity primer did not change mixed-generation team outcomes. The authors’ finding was: “Findings indicate intergenerational teams, with and without diversity training, were less successful, while same generation teams were more successful overall in problem solving. The 30-minute primer did not make an impact on intergenerational team performance outcomes.”
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This was a problem-solving result, not a direct pre/post measure of communication competence. The article discusses communication styles and engagement among unsuccessful teams; it does not establish that an escape room improved cross-generational communication. For an HR evaluation, record both what the team accomplished and how members exchanged information. A game can expose friction that a pleasant post-session survey would otherwise miss.
Tabletop dialogue: structure can make conversation easier
Wong et al.’s participants described how prompts helped them enter conversations. One young participant said: “Sometimes, when talking to middle-aged and older individuals, you may not always know what to say. Not everyone is skilled in discussing various topics with others. On the contrary, this approach raises topics for conversation on which everyone can share their opinions. It’s not too tense, and it makes the conversation with them much easier.” An older participant described the value of a welcoming setting for sensitive subjects: “The gamification provides a welcoming space to share personal matters (anonymously), which helps players to soothe and relax, especially on sensitive topics that might be difficult to bring up with friends, as you may be uncertain if the friend may spread the word unintentionally.”
Those quotations help explain why a facilitated dialogue game might affect satisfaction: a prompt reduces the burden of finding a topic. They are participant accounts from a Hong Kong community intervention, not a guarantee that a workplace game will produce the same response. Ask participants what made discussion easier or harder in their setting.
Corporate learning journeys: completion is not the same as communication
The Sanofi case is closer to workplace implementation than the community studies, but its highlighted metric was program completion. The browser-based format was intended to reduce barriers for older employees, including factory workers, while mixed-age teams moved through themes related to age inclusion. Reflections can reveal how participants interpreted the experience; completion indicates that the journey was finished. Neither alone demonstrates a change in communication competence.
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There is no established figure showing that a given percentage of companies using games achieve a specified improvement in cross-generational communication. Nor is there a large, multi-firm randomized workplace trial combining WICS with communication scales before and after a corporate gaming program and tracking communication for months. Treat a local evaluation as evidence about that program and population, not as a settled general effect.
How should you run a before-and-after evaluation?
A practical four-week evaluation can capture baseline conditions, the game session, immediate communication change and a later climate check. This is a proposed implementation schedule; it is not a protocol tested as a whole in the cited studies.
- Week 1 — define the claim and baseline. Write a narrow, testable statement such as “this mixed-age game will improve communication satisfaction and competence.” Choose the game type—tabletop dialogue, escape-room simulation or digital learning journey—and decide whether its mode is creative, cooperative or competitive. Collect the selected Hecht satisfaction items and ICCS competence items before the intervention. If the aim includes broader organizational change, also administer WICS or WIA and document the age bands you will use.
- Week 1 — plan comparison and participation. Decide whether to compare mixed-generation teams with same-generation teams, or compare outcomes within mixed teams over time. If you include a diversity primer, treat it as a separate factor rather than assuming it works. Richards et al.’s 30-minute primer did not shift problem-solving outcomes in their utility study. Record team composition and establish a consistent facilitation plan.
- Week 2 — deliver the session and capture exposure. Record attendance, completion, missions completed and, where feasible, talk time or structured observations. For in-person sessions, use consenting video participants or trained observers. For a digital journey, keep platform analytics in an implementation dataset separate from communication-scale results.
- Immediately after play — repeat the communication measures. Administer the same satisfaction and competence items with the same response options. Add experience questions about enjoyment and whether the game invited communication. Ask about specific mechanics—such as prompts, friendly competition, badges or prizes—rather than relying on a blanket question about “gamification.”
- Within 10 days — collect participant explanations. Wong et al. interviewed participants within 10 days to limit recall bias; 52 of 68 completers (76.5%) joined qualitative sessions. Focus groups or interviews can explore attitudes toward intergenerational communication, the dialogue or work topic, and the game design. Their team used two independent coders and discussed the codebook to agreement.
- Week 4 — assess the organizational layer. If the intended claim is that the workplace climate has improved, repeat WICS or WIA after a suitable interval rather than treating a 20-minute post-game reaction as a climate measure. Compare the climate result with the baseline and be explicit that a short follow-up cannot establish durable change.
Wong et al. planned for at least 63 participants to detect a medium effect size of 0.5 at alpha .05 and 80% power, assuming SD=1. That is a study-specific planning figure, not a universal minimum for every workplace design. Their completed sample was 68; Richards et al. had 60 employees at one utility, while Zahn et al. observed 10 older adults in a care-home setting. Small studies can help explain process, but subgroup estimates in particular can be uncertain.
How should you analyze and report the results?
Report scale changes, uncertainty, subgroup patterns and observed behavior separately. A clear result should let a reader see whether people liked the game, whether communication measures changed, and whether the interaction itself looked different.
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Use paired comparisons and effect sizes
For a before-and-after group, Wong et al. used paired t-tests and reported 95% confidence intervals and Cohen d. Their applied interpretation used 0.2, 0.5 and 0.8 as small, medium and large effect-size reference points. For subgroups with fewer than 20 participants, use a small-sample correction such as Hedges’ correction rather than presenting an uncorrected effect size as precise. Report the scoring direction: baseline-minus-post coding can yield a negative difference when the score improved.
Show the number of respondents at each time point, missing data, scale wording, group composition and whether the change was statistically significant. A statistically significant average does not mean every age band improved. Wong’s competence finding illustrates why the generation-specific results belong in the report.
Use qualitative accounts to interpret, not replace, the numbers
Interviews can explain why participants felt more comfortable, who felt heard, and which design features created friction. They cannot by themselves establish that communication competence changed across the workforce. Pair them with the pre/post measures and, when feasible, behavior coding. Keep contradictory accounts in the analysis; a participant who felt excluded may point to a real implementation issue even when the group average rises.
Keep business metrics in their proper role
Productivity can be a later organizational outcome, but evidence about inclusive practices is not evidence that gaming caused a productivity gain. A 2024 survey by the London School of Economics Inclusion Initiative and Protiviti covered 1,450 U.S. and U.K. employees in finance, technology and professional services. One-quarter self-reported low productivity; employees whose managers were more than 12 years older were nearly 1.5 times as likely to report low productivity. At companies with intergenerationally inclusive practices, 87% reported high productivity versus 58% without those practices; the reported low-productivity share fell from 37% to 18% for Gen Z and from 30% to 13% for millennials. Those are associations involving inclusive workplace practices, not a gaming trial.
If a game program claims business impact, measure the proposed mechanism too: whether people across age groups have a similar voice in collaboration, can fit in, and see advancement based on merit rather than age. Do not attribute a change in productivity or retention to a game unless the design can distinguish that program’s effect from other changes.
Does gamification work for older employees?
Age alone does not tell you whether someone will welcome a game mechanic. The word “gamification” can shape the answer, and employees may respond differently to particular elements. Measure reactions to the mechanics and the experience, not only to the label.
A 2023 record of a large-company study reported 367 employees at a firm with more than 17,000 workers: 46 Generation Z participants aged 16–24 (13%), 180 Generation Y participants aged 25–40 (49%), and 141 Generation X participants over 40 (38%). The study found statistically significant generational differences in gamification acceptance, with Generation Z enjoying it most. Avatars were popular across generations; badges were mainly popular with Gen Z and Y, and leaderboards mainly with Gen Z. Those findings do not mean older employees reject every game element.
SalesScreen’s 2023 “The Motivation Gap” reported that 42% of Boomers, 33% of Gen Xers and 45% of Millennials ranked “gamification” as an effective motivator, compared with 57% of Gen Z. Yet 57% of Boomers and 64% of Gen Z ranked leaderboards as effective, while 63% of Boomers and 64% of Gen Z ranked physical prizes as effective. These are vendor-reported survey figures, not validated communication outcomes. The difference illustrates why an overall label may obscure opinions about specific mechanics.
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A free scan shows the junk files, broken settings and background clutter dragging Windows down - then fixes them in one click.Free scan · Windows 10 & 11Maxwell Foxman, a University of Oregon professor of media and game studies, observed: “Many older generations associate the word ‘game’ as being frivolous and not being associated with ‘real work.’” He suggested framing the mechanic in language that fits its purpose: “Using leaderboards, or light competition, can obviously be associated with things other than the word ‘game.’ If you call that ‘competition,’ someone from an older generation may have a more positive association with that.” In an evaluation, ask about “friendly competition,” prompts, team missions or recognition separately. Avoid leading language that implies an expected positive response.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What does WICS tell you that a game survey cannot?
WICS measures the broader workplace environment around age groups; it is not an evaluation sheet for a single activity. Use it when the organizational question is whether intergenerational relationships, inclusion or contact have changed beyond the game session.
King and Bryant’s 2017 scale contains 20 items across five subscales: lack of generational stereotypes, positive intergenerational affect, intergenerational contact, workplace generational inclusiveness and workplace intergenerational retention. King’s earlier Workplace Intergenerational Atmosphere (WIA) scale was designed “to measure attitudes and perceptions about workers of different ages in the workplace.” King (2010) reported relationships between WIA and mentoring, perceptions of older workers and job satisfaction, with structural, criterion, convergent and discriminant validity supported in a second sample via structural equation modeling.
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A 2024 Spanish-language adaptation of WICS with 1,116 university teachers reduced the instrument to 16 items and supported structural validity across teaching, research and management contexts. That validation is encouraging, but a university adaptation is not automatic evidence that the shortened version has the same properties in every company, country or workforce. Choose a version appropriate to language and setting, and be transparent about any adaptation.
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1Repair Windows errors before they cause bigger problems2Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches3Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errorsWICS can help distinguish a momentary good conversation from a workplace where people across age groups regularly have contact, feel included and are not reduced to generational stereotypes. Follow-up at this level is especially important if leaders want to say a program changed organizational climate rather than simply making one session more enjoyable.
What are the most common measurement mistakes?
Most weak evaluations confuse participation, team performance or a broad business metric with communication change. Avoid these traps when designing the scorecard.
- Using completion as a communication KPI. A 96% completion result in a corporate learning journey describes exposure, not improved communication.
- Counting points, badges or leaderboard activity as skill. A 2026 vendor snapshot of about 13,000 active boards from roughly 10,000 creators reported that 73% were a single ranked list; among a September 2025 cohort, 17% were still receiving score updates at week 12. These are operational platform figures, not independent evidence that rankings improve communication.
- Using a generic “Do you like gamification?” item. The label can bias responses and conceal support for specific mechanics. Ask about the elements and the interaction each is meant to encourage.
- Using escape-room win/loss as the communication result. A puzzle score measures task success. Pair it with interaction measures if the claim concerns communication.
- Using productivity as a substitute for communication. Productivity is a distal business outcome with many potential causes; inclusive-practice associations do not establish that a game produced the result.
- Pooling generations without showing the pattern. Sample size, age bands, workplace role and team composition can affect averages. State how groups were defined and show subgroup results with appropriate caution.
- Assuming game mode is irrelevant. Creative, cooperative and competitive formats can prompt different types of talk. Record the mode and interpret the behavior measure accordingly.
The workplace literature remains less developed than the family-context literature. Han’s 2022 review of 32 workplace intergenerational-communication studies identified themes including communication technology, relationship dynamics, health and well-being, communication preferences, attitudes and values, and learning and literacy. The practical implication is to make the evaluation specific to the workplace and intervention instead of treating “gaming” as one uniform treatment.
Which game format should you evaluate?
Pick the format that fits the communication behavior you want to observe, then keep the format stable during the evaluation. A guided card game can create openings for dialogue; an escape-room simulation can expose coordination and problem-solving; a digital journey can track completion across a structured learning sequence.
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Tabletop or conversation-card game
Use prompts and cooperative missions when the main goal is to make it easier for colleagues to start or sustain conversation. Evaluate satisfaction, competence, talk type and participation. The Hong Kong study supports the measurement approach and reports encouraging proximal outcomes, but its community health-dialogue context does not predict a corporate result.
Escape-room simulation
Use an escape-room format when the goal is to observe how teams coordinate under a shared task. Measure problem-solving separately from communication, and code information sharing, balanced participation and withdrawal. Richards et al.’s workplace result is a reminder that mixed-generation teams may not outperform same-generation teams in a one-off challenge.
Digital learning journey
Use an LXP journey when the intervention consists of multiple themed modules or games and completion is operationally important. Capture participation and reflection, then add pre/post communication measures if communication improvement is the claim. A platform’s completion dashboard cannot replace those measures.
Whichever format you choose, compare like with like: state whether teams are mixed-age or same-generation, whether they know one another, the game’s mode, the language used and whether a facilitator or primer was present. A community group of strangers and a team of colleagues may respond differently even when the game mechanics look similar.
Frequently Asked Questions
How many employees do I need for a workplace gaming evaluation?
The required sample depends on the outcome, design, expected effect and subgroup comparisons; a total that can detect an overall change may still be too small to compare age bands reliably. Wong et al. planned for 63 participants to detect a medium effect under their assumptions, but that figure should not be copied as a universal threshold.
Should employees answer the survey anonymously?
Anonymity can make it easier to discuss sensitive experiences, as an older participant in Wong et al.’s study described, but it is not a substitute for explaining how responses will be handled. For paired pre/post analysis, use a privacy-preserving way to match responses without asking employees to put names on answers.
Can we claim the game reduced ageism if people say they enjoyed it?
No; enjoyment is an experience measure, not evidence that age-based stereotypes changed. A claim about ageism needs an appropriate measure of stereotypes or intergenerational climate, collected before and after and interpreted in the organization’s context.
Are the same age bands used in every study?
No. Wong et al. grouped participants as 18–39, 40–64 and 65 or older, while workplace reports may define generations differently. State the age or generation rule used in your own evaluation so readers can understand what “mixed-generation” means.
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