The fact that games rooms improve staff morale in working environments is nothing new – back in 2003, Kevin Desouza of the University of Illinois at Chicago found the benefits include on-site entertainment and inter-department competition.

Yet many workplaces still fail to provide any form of employee entertainment for break times, missing out on a valuable opportunity to boost engagement and productivity, while getting employees back to work sooner.

Coin-operated pool tables are one way to add some breaktime entertainment that your workforce will appreciate, and you have plenty of flexibility when it comes to setting the price per play, or even offering free play as a perk.

At Manco Automatic we supply coin-op pool tables to all kinds of premises, including pubs and clubs, as well as pool tables for workplaces across Greater Manchester, and we’ve seen time and time again the positive impact they can have.

Keep employees engaged

Employee engagement is largely about feeling ‘at home’ in the workplace, and while nobody wants their workers to become too relaxed at the cost of productivity, there’s an important balance to strike.

Providing entertainment in the form of a coin-op pool table for break times is a good way of increasing engagement on the employee’s own time, while getting maximum productivity once they return to work.

As Kevin Desouza found, employers also see the benefits of running inter-departmental competitions such as mini pool leagues and knock-out tournaments as a way to increase team morale in addition to individual morale.

There are plenty of ways to do this – either by having employees compete in one-on-one games as part of a team, participating in doubles matches, or even more flexible rules that allow entire teams to compete in the same game.

Why have on-site pool tables?

You might wonder why it’s useful to have a games room in the workplace, as opposed to letting those employees who want a game of pool to go to a local pub on their lunch break.

There are multiple benefits, even on top of the engagement and morale mentioned above.

You get good control over the pool table – so it’s more likely to be available when someone wants a game, and people are more likely to be civil about taking turns.

It can represent an additional revenue stream or a way to raise funds for charity if you charge per game, or you can offer free play as a staff perk.

And finally, by keeping employees on-site during breaks and lunch, they are more likely to return to their desk on time than if they go off-premises and are delayed.

This all adds up to make Manco Automatics pool tables the ideal addition to a workplace games room to boost staff engagement, morale and productivity alike.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0378720603000272