Tell the truth — which training session would you rather go through: Spending two hours watching PowerPoint slides go by or playing a video game? The benefits and communications teams at Assurant Employee Benefits, a Kansas City-based benefits carrier, thought employees would be more engaged by the latter, and have achieved success with the company's series of online training video games called "It's Your Business."

 "We wanted to help employees understand our business better and wanted to use a model that was new, different, interesting," says Sylvia Wagner, Assurant's senior vice president of HR.

 "We put together a team of me, IT and communications to come up with something that had a 'cool factor,' rather than just traditional business education. I have an 18-year-old son so I've been watching that generation and how they learn. They really respond to gaming," and thought Assurant's workers would, too.

After conducting an RFP among tech companies that specialize in creating gaming platforms, Assurant partnered with Kansas City-based Propaganda3.

It turns out, Assurant wasn't the only firm trying something new and different. "We build a lot of gaming Web sites, but our primary clientele is ad agencies. So, [working with Assurant, a benefits firm] was a break for us," says Marcelo Vegara, president of Propaganda3.

 "But [Assurant's team] had put a great deal of thought into what they were trying to do and break the mold regarding training. What made the collaboration between us so great was they put a lot of thought in from the beginning about exactly what they wanted. They even already had games in mind!"

According to Vegara, the typical initial investment for a gaming module is between $15,000 and $25,000, with each new game costing between $7,000 and $25,000 to produce. The pricing varies widely, he says, based on the game's complexity.

 "Something like Hangman is very straightforward, where a scenario-type game - with more animation and activity - is more complex," he explains.

Among the games in Assurant's "It's Your Business" module is a Hangman-esque game that quizzes employees on key business terms and features the firm's CEO tethered to a hot air balloon by several strings. A string is cut with each wrong answer, until he ultimately falls to the ground.

The games test workers on company strategy, customer base, how the company makes money and how employees contribute to company success.

CEO v. CFO smackdown

Designing the games was the fun part; communicating the new training was tougher, although Assurant execs still had a great time.

As "It's Your Business" was rolled out last July, "we had an all-employee meeting to explain the system, what it meant for them and what we were asking them to do," Wagner says. "We launched a portal on our intranet and blog where people could ask questions and find more information."

Then, at the games' premiere, "we had the CEO come play the game against the CFO," she recalls. She won't say who won - just that everyone enjoyed themselves, and enthusiasm continues currently. "We give a leader board award to our top scorers, so people keep playing, trying to get their score higher - not just doing it because they have to do it. We track results on a division level as well, so there's some friendly competition between departments."

For both the young and young at heart

Vegara thinks the gaming format can be a good fit for companies with a diverse workforce.

"For a younger workforce, this is what they grew up doing - playing video games. And even people over 35 are seeing through Wii and iPhone games that video games are an engaging way to learn and teach," he says. For any age group, he continues, "it's delivering information in a way that's going to stick with people. It's active learning, not a sit-back-and-snooze kind of environment."

Wagner affirms that Gen X, Y and boomers alike have benefited from the new training model.

"We have a mixture of multiple generations, and we didn't know if gaming would engage older workers," she says. "But we decided that making it easy to use and fun would work with everybody. It's working; some of our highest scorers aren't necessarily the youngest workers."

Measuring success

In addition to the less-quantifiable successes, like increased employee engagement, "It's Your Business" is scoring success in hard numbers as well.

When the module was launched in July, "we had a goal of having 95% of employees participate in two games [out of a total of eight] by the end of the year," Wagner says. "We hit our participation targets just six weeks after the launch."

Assurant also is measuring how well employees are retaining what they're learning. The module features "an extensive back-end database. When employees play, they have to enter their employee ID, and it tracks the number of times each person has played and their scores each time," explains Angela Skinner, Assurant's manager of external communications. "Then managers can pull up all of their direct reports to see how they are performing as a group."

Skinner explains that there is nothing punitive about "It's Your Business." "It's not factored into their performance appraisal, but getting high participation is tied to employee bonuses, so there's a lot of peer pressure to participate." That said, the company is satisfied with both participation and knowledge retention, according Wagner. "It was kind of a risk that has exceeded our expectations. Our CEO is very happy."

As if a happy CEO weren't gift enough, Assurant received a local award from the American Society for Training and Development for "It's Your Business," in Best Practices in Workplace Learning and Performance Through Technology Innovation.

For employers looking to replicate Assurant's success, Wagner recommends building a diverse team from HR/benefits, IT and communications to "bring different perspectives to the table." But perhaps most important, Skinner says, "Don't be afraid to have fun!"