At Hasbro, "playtime" helps train its next CEO.

In the age of artificial intelligence , the American toy manufacturer Hasbro, owner of the popular board games Monopoly and CandyLand, decided to reverse the saying "the shoemaker's children go barefoot."

In an unusual move, the company developed an in-house strategy board game to train its next leaders. Called Toy Tycoon, the game allows employees to become CEO for a day.

The strategy game simulates the routine of an executive and allows participants to make important decisions for the company's future without actually putting it at risk, since training these skills in the "real world" could be costly for the company, valued at US$11.5 billion.

This way, employees choose which game to invest in, which character license to negotiate, or which format the company should bet on in the future. It may sound like a joke, but it's not.

Employees can only participate in this "game" after an intensive two-day course on the toy industry and Hasbro's business. After this phase, the game itself lasts a full day and is supervised by a "master" who guides the participants through various increasingly complex phases.

According to the company's CEO, Chris Cocks, in an interview with The Wall Street Journal , this strategy aligns with what he believes a leader should possess. In his view, the CEO role closely resembles a strategy game, with its dynamism, originality, and constant challenges.

Hasbro's strategy for training its employees isn't exactly new – although the toy manufacturer innovated by using a strategy board game for this purpose. Other companies adopt what has become known as "gamification".

This is the case with Cisco , which created a program in mid-2015 that facilitates the learning process for its employees and even awards certificates to those most successful in using the tool. At Deloitte, the same method is used with leadership. As a result, the work is completed in half the time compared to the traditional model, without gamification.

Microsoft also relies on gaming techniques for a large portion of its employees worldwide. Its main focus is to make the translations of its products and services increasingly accurate, according to each language and dialect of the countries in which it operates. Thus, the company developed a game focused on this improvement, to make the process more fluid, which yielded good results.

Gamification strategies are gaining traction as a way to motivate employees, who have been losing focus and productivity over the years. In 2024, the workplace engagement rate reached 21%, the first drop in four years, according to the State of the Global Workplace survey by the consulting firm Gallup. Globally, this decline cost companies approximately US$8.9 trillion, representing about 9% of the world's GDP .

Data shows that by gamifying various processes, productivity can increase by 90% in teams, while employee engagement rises by about 60%. This is because, with a well-structured game format, employees feel rewarded for improving their skills.

But it's important to remember that, without the engagement of leaders, the work loses its value. This is because, according to Gallup, managers account for 70% of the variation in team engagement – which makes Hasbro and Deloitte's strategy even more relevant.