Employee Training Essay: Implementation of Brain Training Programs in Workplace

Question

Task: Write an employee training essay presenting the arguments about the effectiveness of brain training programs in the workplace.

Answer

Introduction
Brain training could be defined as the method of using software and electronic applications to generate computer-based tests that are utilised regularly to improve the cognitive capabilities and functions of individuals (Owen et al., 2010).

In this context, this essay argues that brain training programs should be implemented in the workplace. The position is defended by presenting the arguments that brain training helps to improve cognitive functions in adults as well as students with learning disabilities and stroke-affected people. Also, it is a source of recreation which relieves employees of stress in the workplace though there is a lack of evidence that brain training helps in the transfer of skills or productivity in the workplace directly.

Should workplaces implement brain training programs?
According to Al-Thaqib et al. (2018), the prefrontal cortex, hippocampus, and cerebellum of the human brain undergo alterations as the person ages progressively. These modifications lead to the gradual impairment of cognitive abilities such as memory, attention, and analytical skills with progression in age and can raise the chances of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Here the authors also identify two proteins- brain-derived neurotrophic factor or BDNF and apolipoprotein-E or APOE to be associated with cognitive skills and development of Alzheimer's disease. In this context, they further claim that using "brain-training games" (BTG) helps improve the cognitive functions in healthy individuals including young and older adults. For this purpose, they presented the evidence gathered from their study involving 72 healthy persons for 3 weeks. After the study, it was found that the 51 volunteers who participated in playing the cognitive brain training game Lumosity for 3 weeks showed substantial improvements in their cognitive abilities like motor skills, working memory, coordination, and attention whereas the control group of 21 people who did not take part in the games showed no such improvements. Further, the APOE was found to be positively related to memory for recognising patterns in the 51 participants. Pickersgill et al. (2017), further corroborate these findings by introducing the term "active ageing" which means ageing effectively with lesser degradation of the brain slowing down the impairment of cognitive functions, and mention that utilisation of brain training games could help individuals improve their memory and other cognitive skills.

On the other hand, Simons et al. (2016) express suspicion about the apparent efficacy of brain training activities on improving cognitive functions when performing closely or distantly connected tasks. In this context, they mention that the presently available brain training games or applications like Cogmed, Lumosity, Nintendo, and Posit Science among many others advertise that practicing tasks in these applications improve the performance of users gradually and also the improvement is replicated when similar tasks are performed later. However, as per the authors, practice only improves the performance of the same task and cannot be transferred to perform either closely or distantly related jobs.

They mention that when a person learns to memorise digits it is only able to enhance the span of his or her digits however, this enhancement will be ineffective in expanding his or her letter or colour span. Similarly, neurons in the human brain also show this effect as the ends of the neuron grow when they are repeatedly exposed to the same stimulus that is specific for practicing a specific task. Stojanoski et al. (2018) further support these claims as they state that brain training cannot enhance improvement in similar tasks even if they are related closely. In order to defend their argument, they present their findings involving 72 volunteers who participated in their study. The volunteers were subjected to training on two related but different tasks used to increase their working memory and then were required to perform untrained exercises. While they showed improvement during training for both related exercises, the expected advancement in their performance in the untrained exercise was not met. Therefore, it can be concluded that knowledge gathered during the training did not get transferred while performing unrelated exercises which deemed brain training to be ineffectual in increasing cognitive abilities generally.

Despite the widespread debate about brain training's ability to improve general cognitive skills for application in different unrelated activities, the role of brain training in enhancing these skills in certain groups has scientifically been proven. For example, Abduh&Tahar (2018) claim that brain training and gym actively improve the working memory in students with learning disabilities. As per the authors, the short-term memory used to solve current problems is directly related to learning disabilities and students with these problems have weaker working memory affecting their performance in school negatively. Therefore, the authors experimented on a pool of 15 students with learning difficulties and proved that after brain training, the students showed significant development in developing spatial memory, and memory regarding learning digits. Similarly, Van De Ven et al. (2017) state that exploiting technologies to train the brain can help people suffering from a stroke. As this training can be done easily at home besides rehabilitation centres, this training is gaining ground in improving the cognition of people enduring damage in the brain due to stroke. The authors conducted their study for 12 weeks involving 38 adults of age 30 to 80 years who had been affected with stroke. It was found that brain training not only improved general cognitive performances in the participants but also enhanced the transfer of skills in attention, motor speed, reasoning abilities, and executive functioning which is in stark contrast to the second argument.

However, the effect of brain training in directly increasing workplace productivity has not yet been proved (Borness et al., 2013). Nevertheless, it has been found that brain training activities can relieve the employees in any private, government, or educational organisations of their stress for a short duration by providing the means of mere enjoyment. Also, these activities have been shown earlier to be effective in reducing the detrimental effect of ageing and keeping the brain active, therefore, the employment of brain training could also help to keep the employees healthy while maintaining their emotional health.

Therefore, it can be stated that while implementing brain training programs may not directly boost productivity in the workplace, they can offer respite from stress caused due to workload and positively affect the emotional well-being of employees. As the rising complexities in the workplace are progressively increasing the risk of mental illness, it is important to ensure the emotional well-being of the employees which also leads to an increase in productivity (Kersemaekers et al., 2018). Hence, this essay supports the implementation of brain training programs in the workplace to maintain the mental health of employees.

Conclusion
It has been found in the essay that brain training helps to improve the cognitive proficiency of healthy young and older adults. Due to this improvement, the brain ages actively and the risk of dementia-related diseases decreases. However, these benefits have not been replicated while performing untrained exercises or even closely related exercises. Despite this lack of knowledge transfer, it has been shown that brain training helps students with learning problems strengthen their memory, helps stroke survivors improve cognition, and helps workers relieve stress. Therefore, workplaces should be implementing brain training programs to maintain the emotional well-being of their employees.

Reference list
Abduh, B., &Tahar, M. M. (2018). The effectiveness of brain gym and brain training intervention on working memory performance of student with learning disability. Journal of ICSAR, 2(2), 105-111. http://dx.doi.org/10.17977/um005v2i22018p105 Al-Thaqib, A., Al-Sultan, F., Al-Zahrani, A., Al-Kahtani, F., Al-Regaiey, K., Iqbal, M., & Bashir, S. (2018). Brain Training Games Enhance Cognitive Function in Healthy Subjects. Medical science monitor basic research, 24, 63–69. https://doi.org/10.12659/msmbr.909022

Borness, C., Proudfoot, J., Crawford, J., & Valenzuela, M. (2013). Putting brain training to the test in the workplace: a randomized, blinded, multisite, active-controlled trial. PloS one, 8(3), e59982. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0059982

Kersemaekers, W., Rupprecht, S., Wittmann, M., Tamdjidi, C., Falke, P., Donders, R., ...&Kohls, N. (2018). A workplace mindfulness intervention may be associated with improved psychological well-being and productivity. A preliminary field study in a company setting. Frontiers in psychology, 9, 195. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00195

Owen, A. M., Hampshire, A., Grahn, J. A., Stenton, R., Dajani, S., Burns, A. S., Howard, R. J., & Ballard, C. G. (2010). Putting brain training to the test. Nature, 465(7299), 775–778. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature09042

Pickersgill, M., Broer, T., Cunningham-Burley, S., &Deary, I. (2017). Prudence, pleasure, and cognitive ageing: configurations of the uses and users of brain training games within UK media, 2005–2015. Employee training essay Social Science & Medicine, 187, 93-100. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.06.028

Simons, D. J., Boot, W. R., Charness, N., Gathercole, S. E., Chabris, C. F., Hambrick, D. Z., & Stine-Morrow, E. A. (2016). Do “brain-training” programs work?.Psychological Science in the Public Interest,17(3), 103-186. https://doi.org/10.1177/1529100616661983

Stojanoski, B., Lyons, K. M., Pearce, A. A., & Owen, A. M. (2018). Targeted training: Converging evidence against the transferable benefits of online brain training on cognitive function. Neuropsychologia, 117, 541-550. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2018.07.013

Van De Ven, R. M., Buitenweg, J. I., Schmand, B., Veltman, D. J., Aaronson, J. A., Nijboer, T. C., ... &Murre, J. M. (2017). Brain training improves recovery after stroke but waiting list improves equally: A multicenter randomized controlled trial of a computer-based cognitive flexibility training. PloS one, 12(3), e0172993. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0172993