11 Reasons to Introduce Gamification at Work

Want to stay ahead of your competitors? Increase your employees’ productivity, keep them motivated and engaged? Reduce employee turnover and increase retention? The answer to your business goals is…gamification.

Gamification is essentially the practice of integrating game principles and mechanics into a non-game experience. For instance, gamifying training and compliance programs, introducing leaderboards, recognising swift and efficient service delivery and rewarding employees for their performance.

No Longer a Child’s Play

Introducing gamification at work has yielded inconceivable results in recent times. With an increasing number of employees working from home, integrating gamification in the day-to-day operations of the company is gaining immense popularity. Industry leaders such as Google, Microsoft, Samsung, Cisco and others have already jumped on the bandwagon and are investing aggressively in gamified training programs. Here are 11 reasons why you should do it too!

Gamification for Training and Compliance

Onboarding New Employees

Learners recall 10% of what they read and 20% of what they hear but remember up to 90% of an interactive gamified task that they perform.

Gamification can help effectively conduct induction and compliance training, introduce new joinees to company policies, legal procedures, inform existing employees about updated policies, incentives, referral programs and more.

Using interactive methods based on real-life work scenarios can help new employees better understand the demands of their role, organisational objectives and standards.

Help Employees Upskill and Reskill

Gamification can be used to upskill new and existing employees and educate them about new products, software and technology. It can motivate employees to update their skills in line with the company needs and objectives.

Increase Training Effectiveness

Introducing live scores and dashboards can help employees keep track of their performance in training programs and motivate them to perform better through effective teamwork and collaboration.

Gamification to Improve Engagement and Output

Improve Employee Engagement and Reduce Turnover

According to the latest Gallup report, merely 36% of employees are engaged in the workplace. Another Gallup’s report on employee engagement shows that companies with a highly engaged workforce have 21% higher profitability. As per the 2019 Gamification at Work Survey by Talent LMS, 89% of employees said gamification made them feel more productive, while 88% said it made them feel happier at work. Integrating gamification at work has proven to considerably improve employee engagement and reduce turnover.

Allows Employees to Think Outside the Box

Gamification creates an excellent framework for problem-solving. Games can be designed to help teams practice effective service delivery and better client dealing. The game environment strengthens strategic thinking and helps employees find novel solutions to existing and new problems.

Encourage Healthy Competition for sales, leads etc.

Encourage the competitive spirit of your team by setting up live scores, leaderboards, dashboards, rewards, badges etc. This will enable them to see how they fare against their peers and encourages healthy competition. These can be particularly helpful in encouraging sales and marketing teams. With a reward system in place, they can be inspired to aim higher and achieve more!

Improve Feedback System and Provide Real-Time Appraisals

An efficient and quick feedback loop can significantly help your program succeed. Real- time feedback via scorecards or reward points can enable employees to assess their performance and drive individual and team success.

Incentivise and Reward

Points, scores, badges and rewards can be introduced through gamified elements to incentivise outstanding performance and service delivery. Leaderboards and real-time scores can ignite in the employees some friendly competition and boost overall output, profitability and growth.

Gamification in Team Building

Introduce and Connect with New Team Members

In remote or hybrid models, with no physical interaction, employees can often feel disconnected within the team. Gamification can be used to increase interaction among employees and improve team bonding. It can also help managers identify their team’s strengths and optimise their workforce.

Improve Teamwork and Encourage Collaboration

Gamification can be used to foster team development. Competing in games can help break the ice, increase bonding, boost morale and instill in employees a sense of belonging.

Keep the Team Connected

Introducing game elements in day-to-day operations can help teams stay connected and keep them aligned on tasks, deliverables and others, especially while working remotely.