January 13, 2015
Gamification: Making Work Fun!
You may have heard the word gamification, as it’s starting to become more popular, especially in the workplace, but what exactly does it mean? Gamification is applying game metrics in non-game settings to increase user engagement and drive user behavior with appropriate rewards. Gamification is a great way to promote and encourage desired behavior, but it will take work to build, and like employee engagement as a whole, it can’t be viewed as a short term program –you need to invest in gamification for the long term. According to Perks.com, over 64% of employees welcome games in the workplace, and 81% want their employer to include even more game options.
Developing Gamification
In order for gamification to be successful it needs to be linked to your business objectives. A sample objective is driving sales. Having a leaderboard will help employees track where they rank, creating healthy competition to help drive sales goals. You will also need to identify the desired behaviors that will help drive your objectives, and what rewards you will use to encourage such behavior. A desired behavior to drive sales could be the time in which a sales representative follows up on a lead, or converts a lead into an opportunity. The reward for this sales person may be through recognition in order to show status; this may be through a sales award or trophy. Other possible rewards are privileges given to the achieving employee or nominal monetary rewards, such as a gift card. The leaderboard will help employees see where they rank, and can even be rewarded by points or badges to help drive them to the next level.
Who Should Play?
Everyone. Participation in gamification should include all members of the organization. Employee engagement works across all departments and levels of an organization, the same rings true for gamificaiton. Employee engagement is a culture and successful gamification programs will become a part of that culture. It’s important to develop your gamification program to reflect the values and culture of your organization, or you risk it failing because employees won’t embrace it.
Why Gamification Works
“A good game,” Jesse Schell says, “gives us meaningful accomplishment, clear achievement that we don’t necessarily get from real life.” Just about everyone is driven by achievement and accomplishment. Gamification helps clearly outline what you are achieving though levels, badges, and points with an added advantage of instant feedback. Additionally, there is brain science to support why gamification works; each time a person achieves a goal or point, the hormone in the brain called dopamine is released. This hormone makes you want to continue because dopamine tells us to explore and try new things. Employee engagement can increase by 50% or more by using gamification programs.
Are you using gamification? What type of gamification have you found to be successful?
-Kaitlyn Carr, Organizational Development Specialist @EmplyEngagement @kacarr789
