Corporate gamification is a growing trend in the business world. This trend uses all of the techniques that make video games so entertaining and engaging to improve day-to-day business functions. From incorporating point awards to leveling up, gamification hacks the most effective qualities of gaming to deliver educational programs and training courses. Because of the success of these methods, gamification has been growing in popularity and is a good policy for businesses to adopt.
Employee engagement is a necessity for any business that wants to keep its workers. If your engagement levels drop, your workers will be less productive and more likely to quit. Gamification is one way you can start improving employee engagement levels.
When someone is passionate about what they are doing, time passes quickly. They don’t care if they have to stay late at the office or show up on weekends. It might be impossible to make every employee care about your company’s mission, but you can make them enjoy their job more.
If your employees feel like they are playing a game instead of working, they will be more interested in what they are doing. This is one of the primary reasons why gamification can boost your overall productivity and engagement. Each day, there are necessary, mundane tasks that employees have to do. When you create a game that awards points for answering emails, sorting files, or editing paperwork, you can make the process more exciting. This helps to boost engagement for the mundane tasks as well as increasing engagement levels overall.
Making the link
Productivity and engagement are closely linked. When a worker is more engaged, they are often more willing to work and will work harder. Disengaged employees are unlikely to put in a lot of effort because they don’t actually care about what they’re doing. Gamification initiatives can help boost productivity by making workers more engaged and interested in their day-to-day tasks.
Performance Management
Gamification initiatives can also help managers to understand performance management. With gamification, you can use leader boards to show off high scores and encourage employees to get more points. You can also receive and analyze data from all of your employees. This makes managing and tracking your employees’ performance simpler to do.
Your employees’ performance determines their success. When employees are more productive at work, it helps to reduce your labor costs. Performance is also important because you need everything to be done well. Other than providing you with data, gamification also nudges employees toward performing their best.
Employees are naturally resistant to major changes. When people feel comfortable in a certain environment, they are unwilling to change unless there is a good reason to do so. With gamification, you can use game-style training sessions to make the transition easier. Employees can level up by completing different milestones and training programs. They can also receive more points that help them beat their co-workers. It may also be worthwhile to introduce small incentives for certain “scores” or achievements.
An estimated 69 percent of employees will stay with a business for three years or more if they go through an excellent onboarding process. Training and onboarding are the introduction your employees have to your business. It is when they determine if your company’s culture, benefits, values, and mission are aligned with their own. If employees go through a horrible, unstructured onboarding process, it could push them to leave the company sooner.
Gamification is extremely useful in onboarding and training. You can use a points system for different milestones along the learning path. You can map out the employee’s goals for the training path or their career path. You can mimic the design of video games by setting up challenges. If you divide new employees into different teams for earning points and achieving challenges, you can also transform your training sessions into a competition. All of these techniques make learning and employee development easier and more exciting for your employees.
New rules of learning
Career development and continued learning courses can also use gamification techniques. The same ideas that worked for your onboarding sessions can also work for employee development. Your goal is to motivate your employees and make learning enjoyable. Gamification basically lets you take the actual work out of coming to the office each day.
While there are certainly benefits to using gamification, you cannot use just any game if you want it to work. You need creative, meaningful games that have real depth. If your strategy is poorly executed, it can end up backfiring and making your workers less engaged. Try incorporating different challenges and achievements. You can also use characters like in a video game. These can be mascots from your company or the images of the company’s founders.
Rewards, levels, rules, and quests are also useful ideas. Get inspired by thinking about your favorite game. Then, use this inspiration to create a similar game. It can be based on things like teamwork, quests, competitions, or learning skills.
There is no reason why your employees have to dislike coming to work. Through gamification, you can make your employees enjoy the most boring, mundane tasks they do each day. You can use gamification initiatives for everything from employee development to training during a transition. With the right program, you can improve engagement levels, boost productivity, and make your employees excited about coming to the office each day.
Eve is the co-owner and VP of Human Resources at Royal Ambulance. She serves on the Board of the St.Rose Hospital Foundation, and is involved in a variety of other community enrichment programs and initiatives, committed to improving healthcare through innovation and patient-focused solutions.
Image: InTouch Games
March 5, 2020
To many major firms, work is becoming just a game
by Eve Grau • Comment, Workplace
Employee engagement is a necessity for any business that wants to keep its workers. If your engagement levels drop, your workers will be less productive and more likely to quit. Gamification is one way you can start improving employee engagement levels.
When someone is passionate about what they are doing, time passes quickly. They don’t care if they have to stay late at the office or show up on weekends. It might be impossible to make every employee care about your company’s mission, but you can make them enjoy their job more.
If your employees feel like they are playing a game instead of working, they will be more interested in what they are doing. This is one of the primary reasons why gamification can boost your overall productivity and engagement. Each day, there are necessary, mundane tasks that employees have to do. When you create a game that awards points for answering emails, sorting files, or editing paperwork, you can make the process more exciting. This helps to boost engagement for the mundane tasks as well as increasing engagement levels overall.
Making the link
Productivity and engagement are closely linked. When a worker is more engaged, they are often more willing to work and will work harder. Disengaged employees are unlikely to put in a lot of effort because they don’t actually care about what they’re doing. Gamification initiatives can help boost productivity by making workers more engaged and interested in their day-to-day tasks.
Performance Management
Gamification initiatives can also help managers to understand performance management. With gamification, you can use leader boards to show off high scores and encourage employees to get more points. You can also receive and analyze data from all of your employees. This makes managing and tracking your employees’ performance simpler to do.
Your employees’ performance determines their success. When employees are more productive at work, it helps to reduce your labor costs. Performance is also important because you need everything to be done well. Other than providing you with data, gamification also nudges employees toward performing their best.
Employees are naturally resistant to major changes. When people feel comfortable in a certain environment, they are unwilling to change unless there is a good reason to do so. With gamification, you can use game-style training sessions to make the transition easier. Employees can level up by completing different milestones and training programs. They can also receive more points that help them beat their co-workers. It may also be worthwhile to introduce small incentives for certain “scores” or achievements.
An estimated 69 percent of employees will stay with a business for three years or more if they go through an excellent onboarding process. Training and onboarding are the introduction your employees have to your business. It is when they determine if your company’s culture, benefits, values, and mission are aligned with their own. If employees go through a horrible, unstructured onboarding process, it could push them to leave the company sooner.
Gamification is extremely useful in onboarding and training. You can use a points system for different milestones along the learning path. You can map out the employee’s goals for the training path or their career path. You can mimic the design of video games by setting up challenges. If you divide new employees into different teams for earning points and achieving challenges, you can also transform your training sessions into a competition. All of these techniques make learning and employee development easier and more exciting for your employees.
New rules of learning
Career development and continued learning courses can also use gamification techniques. The same ideas that worked for your onboarding sessions can also work for employee development. Your goal is to motivate your employees and make learning enjoyable. Gamification basically lets you take the actual work out of coming to the office each day.
While there are certainly benefits to using gamification, you cannot use just any game if you want it to work. You need creative, meaningful games that have real depth. If your strategy is poorly executed, it can end up backfiring and making your workers less engaged. Try incorporating different challenges and achievements. You can also use characters like in a video game. These can be mascots from your company or the images of the company’s founders.
Rewards, levels, rules, and quests are also useful ideas. Get inspired by thinking about your favorite game. Then, use this inspiration to create a similar game. It can be based on things like teamwork, quests, competitions, or learning skills.
There is no reason why your employees have to dislike coming to work. Through gamification, you can make your employees enjoy the most boring, mundane tasks they do each day. You can use gamification initiatives for everything from employee development to training during a transition. With the right program, you can improve engagement levels, boost productivity, and make your employees excited about coming to the office each day.
Eve is the co-owner and VP of Human Resources at Royal Ambulance. She serves on the Board of the St.Rose Hospital Foundation, and is involved in a variety of other community enrichment programs and initiatives, committed to improving healthcare through innovation and patient-focused solutions.
Image: InTouch Games