Gamification as a Way of Increasing of Involvement in the Working Processes

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Company leaders have been long discussing gamification as one of the best ways to boost employee engagement. Gallup has researched that 85 % of employees all around the world are not engaged in what they do at work. Also, disengagement can be costly for companies. So, how can gamification help?

Gamification — What Is It?

Let’s explore what this process means for business. That means using game-based elements (competition, rewards, scoring, quizzes, missions) at work to “activate” people and make them more involved in the business processes.

All of us have children inside — this is a fact from psychology. When we combine serious business with fun, people “wake up” and achieve more. Games arouse interest and energy, such elements make work amusing and curious.

Every boring task can be gamified. For example, offer rewards to employees who complete any task first, and the spirit of competition will keep everyone focused.

The formula will be like this:

More Engagement >> More Productivity >> Better Business Results

Does It Really Work?

Let’s see what research papers say to find out whether gamification is worth implementing in your business.

The 2019 Gamification at Work Survey by Talent LMS has proven that employees enjoy gamification at work. 97% of office staff agree that game-based elements would help improve work, 87% believe that they keep them more productive, and 85% would spend more time on gamified software. Among those people who already use such gamified software, 80% enjoy using it at work.

In the IT industry that is boosting from the inflow of the workforce consisting mainly of millennials, introducing gamification is crucial. The Training Journal resource says that 75% of the global workforce by 2025 will be made up of millennials. This is a generation that grew up on computers and video games. So, gamification in the workplace will find a wider appeal with them.

How Should We Use It in the Workplace?

Here are three ideas of how you can implement gamification within your company or department.

#1 Gamification for Training

Education and training are the first things that come to mind, as commonly it is used among students to make them better remember the information. In the workplace, employees are constantly educating, starting from the onboarding and continuing with enhancing skills and consuming new information on their specialty.

Some companies even have in-house academies to train their staff. If you don’t have, decide on rewards or bonuses for those who pass new training courses, read professional books, and train others. You can add other gamification elements to rewards, for example, badges, missions, or leaderboards to motivate employees.

#2 Skyrocketing Job Performance

If your goal is to boost business results, think about how you can gamify working processes. Do you need some ideas to start with?

• It may be a competition for people who overdo their KPIs with a final reward. 
• Also, you can introduce a success percentage calculator that will tell colleagues how many % of their KPIs are done today. 
• And one more idea — you can introduce special badges for those who have the leading position within the company or a department.

The list can be continued and depends only on your imagination. You can also start with a minimal level of game-based elements and add more of them once you see the increase in job performance.

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#3 Easing Communication with a Game

Sometimes, there is a lack of proper communication between employees and their managers, which affects the engagement rate. We understand that managers are very busy and don’t always have time to share detailed feedback, and gamification is a great helper here!

Short polls or even a game with choosing either green (= Everything is okay) or red (= There are still issues) option will help colleagues exchange feedback. Noteworthy, such activity doesn’t take much time to assess the employees’ success. Note, that some cases may need clarification and further negotiation with people who are facing difficulties and get too much negative feedback.

#4, 5, 6… What Else Is There?

Also, you should remember that gamification can be used in almost every aspect of doing business when it comes to cooperation with people. For example, it’s useful for:

• Searching for talents and recruiting.
• Retaining employees and nurturing your company culture and values.
• Easing administrative processes.
• Motivating colleagues to achieve better career success.
• Improving the overall wellness of the staff.

Gamification Checklist

It’s not enough to create software that will rank your employees by their KPIs and achieved goals. Should you want game-based elements to work the best way, follow these tips:

1. First, come up with an understanding of why you need gamification. What purpose will it fulfill? For example, you may choose specific business goals or just increase employee engagement.
2. Learn your employees’ needs. What drives them the best?
3. Considering your employees’ motivation and unique skills, develop a gamified program for the staff.
4. Introduce the program to your colleagues and clearly describe its purpose. They should understand what it is for, otherwise they will hardly use it.
5. We all know that only practice makes perfect. The very first effort might appear ineffective. Test your program, fix its drawbacks, based on the analysis, and adjust it accordingly.

Once you realize what you need to improve in your business, company or department, grab this checklist and develop a custom solution that will guarantee results! ?