Brain teasers, races improve morale, boost efficiency

Business Report Correspondent

BROOMFIELD — Ideas for businesses can spring up in the most unlikely places. For Kari Nelson, founder of Recess Active Entertainment, the genesis occurred in Aspen. As she was “watching drunk people,” she realized that workers could spend their breaks in more pleasurable, productive ways than hanging out in bars.

“There’s a lot of substance abuse in Aspen,” Nelson notes, “and it occurred to me that people, young people especially, could really enjoy themselves if they realized what they could do on their breaks.” Developing that idea birthed Recess, and the health and wellness coordinator who was in Aspen to create a program for its high school had a new career.

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Her program’s mission is the “enhancement of quality of life in a corporate environment.” It has been evolving for a one and one-half years as Nelson was raising $1 million in capital. So far the purposeful entertainment company has been homeless, but that will change in spring 2002 when Recess will share space with a large health club in a still-to-be completed building in the Interlocken business park of Broomfield.

Through activities such as African drumming, dodge ball, scooter races and brain teasers, Nelson and her associates believe they can show businesses that building relationships will affect companies’ bottom lines, improve retention and productivity, and make dollars spent on employees go further.

Instead of offering a pre-made package, she tailors programs to a company’s needs. As an example, she provided a game-show atmosphere for a technical training session. Contestants were selected from the audience and had to compete for prizes. Rather than providing a didactic, lecture format that bores people, she says, her new approach grabbed the attention of the high-tech trainees.

All of Recess’ efforts involve teaching people how to laugh harder and to exceed their expectations. With 12 contract professionals, including organizational development experts and management consultants, Nelson aims, along with John Frudenberger of Inside Lane with whom she is working, to take Recess out for varied corporate events and functions, including product kickoffs, promotional sponsorships and commencements.

As part of her effort to get the name out, Nelson will offer Recess once a week this summer in North Boulder Park. Each Recess event will cost $750 to sponsor and will offer the vendors an opportunity to display and provide samples of their products. The free lunch breaks will offer kick ball and other back-to-recess, energy-releasing activities. It’s all part of Nelson’s goal to remind workers how to make the most of their breaks.

Watch for announcements. Dates have not been set as yet, but they probably will start the beginning of June. Nelson expects the 35 people who likely will be at the first event to grow to 70 individuals by the end of the summer.

Recess’ pricing depends on what a client wants to attain, how many people are involved and the number of sessions requested. “We’ve designed our pricing to encourage revisiting companies,” says Nelson. “We want to show, for instance, that work flow increases dramatically when workers exercise over lunch. We can make a difference, and we offer evaluations that show measurable results, but those results are harder to achieve if we only come in sporadically.”

Recess has about 20 clients between the Denver Tech Center and Boulder. Local ones include Hotbank, LightSpeed Graphic Arts, Cloud 10 Designs, GE Access and B2B BootCamp. Nelson says she has the resources to handle more than 100 clients. She expects having her own 10,000 square feet, including a Recess obstacle course in the 85,000-square-foot Broomfield facility, will help meet her target of six new clients a week.Call Recess at (303) 517-6716 or click on www.YourRecess.com.