Being the HR manager, I am tasked to make sure there is harmony and peace in the workplace and everybody gets along with everybody.

I saw the The Office (US tv series) season 3, episode 3 where the co-workers play call of duty game as a team-building exercise.

Is it a good idea to make my co-workers play video games in the office for better co-operation skills and team-building ?

I might have a LAN party here.

May God have mercy on their souls.

They put you in charge of that!?

Who the hell is in charge of making sure the office remains a drug free environment, Keith Richards?

To give tort the benefit of the doubt and answer his question seriously:
The Office is a comedy series. I'm not sure how well video games would go over, especially depending on the age range/familiarity with the games. Not a bad idea, though.

Team building he says. Exercise he says.

I hiss whenever someone enters my lair and stretching out to grab more chips causes a mini heart attack.

How about no, don't take tv series to seriously.

At one place I worked the programmers played against the support desk in games of Counterstrike (original) at lunch time. that was good.

Back in the early-mid-90's, at a place I worked then,we used to have after-hours LAN Doom sessions. They were a blast, and I think were quite helpful in building team-camaraderie.

BUT, no one made us do it - those that didn't want to - didn't. No pressure.

I would not make anyone do that - but if making it freely available as an option (with no peer-pressure), then I've seen it myself and it can (under good circumstances) be a positive thing.

Its ground to tread carefully...

..yeah thats what i thought
maybe he is less of an abrasive dick offline ?

OMG you are an HR manager.. wait, why am I surprised, it's the norm nowadays.

(btw, this could be some bull***t)

What type of office work? Age ranges and gender split?

As I mentioned earlier, one company I worked at did have lunchtime games of Counterstrike.

But it was something we organised rather than imposed.

What has gender to do with it?! Remember that MORE women than men play video games (solitaires and Candy Clash are popular).

I can see you are open to ideas by even asking this question. I do think when people are together in new experiences they behave better (for a while). It might help. The team buildiong excercises I found most useful for my staff in the past were outdoor ones, such as assault couse problem solving.

I also had a lot of success with people spending time together in each others job. For example an outside sales person sitting with an office sales person to apprciate their problems and what could make things easier. Then send the internal person out for the day with the external person. When people appreciate each others problems they are usually more helpful, therefore efficient.

As for the LAN party, don't do what YOU would like, do what the TEAM needs.

Thank you for good answers to sammagel, bonzer, martek and mechmouse.