Catch your monster ...
The Pokémon Go application for mobile phones is a recent global phenomenon. Although it was only launched in mid-July, it has become the most successful mobile game of all time. Owners of Android or iOS phones in the Czech Republic have been able to download the game since 16th July.
The game is based on the principle of linking gaming and the real world, augmented reality. It uses Internet connections and GPS technology to determine the players' positions and display them on their phone screens. Players walk the streets and other areas of the real world while being able to see themselves on their phones as virtual characters who are moving on a map of the same area. Unlike in the real world, however, they can see randomly placed Pokémons on the map and their task is to catch them.
... but not at work
It is no exception that players are attacking places where they shouldn't be playing. They even look for Pokémons at former concentration camps and other sacred places. These places have protested against playing the game there, and some of them have already banned it. As the game is spreading so quickly, it also raises the question of how to approach employees who are playing Pokémon Go at work, and when they are playing on their own devices.
It only took a few days from the launch of the game for the first employer to ban it. The aerospace manufacturer Boeing responded to the fact that hundreds of its workers downloaded Pokémon Go to their work mobile phones. The first work-related accidents also occurred as a result of playing the game.
Employers aren't the only ones taking action. The first person to quit his job to become a full-time Pokémon catcher was Tom Currie, a former barista from New Zealand, who has already caught 91 of the 150 Pokémons he can catch in the game.
Legal experts throughout the world agree that playing mobile games during working hours is the same as using the Internet for personal purposes, sending personal e-mails or doing anything other than what the employee's job requires. Although breaks, when employees aren't working, are questionable in this sense, occupational safety rules have to be maintained.
Do you play Pokémon Go? And what about your employees?
-kk-