Whenever it is your coffee or lunch break at your office, you may often find yourself bored and dreading getting back down to some work. For many employees of Ordina, however, this is not the case. Ordina is one of the fast-growing ICT service providers in the Netherlands, and the company ensures that coffee breaks are never boring or monotonous. They use their breaks and spare time to stimulate and motivate themselves with the help of our favourite white box of wonders, the Wii.

At a large amount of consulting and ICT offices, a big LCD TV is hanging next to the coffee machine. And underneath it, four enticing Wii Remotes lay there, waiting to be played. If you think about it, it is quite logical. At a company that uses computers as a main work station it will never hurt the people who work with it to get some extra exercise. And this way the company even has its own personal fitness center without all the troubles of getting changed, having extra coaching and taking a shower afterwards. The Wii seems to be the ideal partner to get employees off their feet and keep their minds on something other than work. It even prevents RSI in a fun and healthy way.

Still, avoiding RSI isn't the only reason to get a Wii placed permanently next to the coffee machine. Work psychologists all too well know that having some form of relaxation at the office keeps people from staying home 'sick'. This is all to achieve the highest goal: a healthy mind and body. This way you won't hear any employees complain much, if at all. The head office of Ordina in the Dutch city of Nieuwegein is therefore seen as highly advanced in terms of the technology at its disposal. Extraordinarily enough, the Nintendo Wii is a very important building block in Ordina's health policy. The high amounts of gamers in suits are living proof of that!

This whole idea was masterminded by the health manager, Erik van der Ploeg, working there to manage and maintain the Dutch healthcare law. It did take some time before everyone was on the same level as he was; after all playing videogames at the office isn't the casual way to go. By simply calculating the advantages he found a way to convince the people the use of his plan. "If you like it at work people won't intend to get 'sick' so fast, the amount of 'sick' people at work will decrease. And that is something you can show in numbers. That way you will save millions," Erik told us with a big smile on his face.

Before the worldwide launch of the Nintendo Wii, Erik saw videos of the many uses of the Wii on Youtube, which furthered his interest in the possibilities of the Wii. This would be a big breakthrough for Ordina, and as fast as he could, he ordered the first Wii units for several Ordina offices and ever since that day the Wii is played every day at every single break.

The 27-year-old business consultant and gaming fanatic Ronald Konijnenberg finds it all very logical. "If you work on high abstract levels you tend to get very bored of it." Last autumn he worked at the head office on his first major project, with a Wii right around the corner from his office. "It is great to discharge once in a while with a nice game of tennis." The Wii stands not in a far away corner of the building but at one of the main hallways where visitors and personnel constantly pass by. "This we have done on purpose," says Van der Ploeg. "Not only the youngest generation is playing the Wii but also the older consultants. It may be they are no gamers but they just can't stay away from the Wii."

Like every healthy company, making money is also important, so next to the Wii there are too sighs with the rules that go along with it. Playing Wii Sports is only permitted during breaks, and for 15 minutes. However, after you're finished with work you are allowed to play as much Wii as you like and you can play whatever game you like. Ordina employees just can't get enough of it, tells health manager Van der Ploeg. "The Wii is most definitely not a gimmick. You can see the interest of the employees to go sporting grow." His enthusiasm about the Wii seems to set fire to the other employees. There is even a group of account managers that get together on regular basis to 'discharge' by playing Wii Sports Golf. And there is even an 'Ordina Davis Cup', a competition that pits the Ordina offices against one another in multiplayer Wii contests. And this is not your average friendly competition. Oh no, this game is not to be taken flippantly, as Van der Ploeg makes clear: "Only the best of a department can take place at this competition. We train hard, and we don't take it lightly."

Maybe you could make your office coffee breaks more entertaining by introducing a Wii into the environment, and keep everyone in the office fit as a fiddle at the same time!

Written by David Nieborg (DePers) and Maikel de Bakker (NiSuTe Europe)