Real-life Examples of Gamification at Work

Much has been written about the benefits of gamification within the corporate environment. From a scientific perspective, the advantages that gamification offers have been proven empirically. But how can companies practically, and successfully, implement gamification?   

We’ll look at practical corporate gamification examples, complete with actionable takeaways, so that you can take your corporate gamification offering to a whole new level. 

What is gamification? 

It’s important to first define what gamification is. Gamification is the use of techniques borrowed from gaming, applied to a non-game context. For example, in a mobile game there might be points to collect, levels to progress through, or badges to earn. In a corporate environment, employees can also perform key actions to earn points, badges, or reach a new level.  

Just like with actual gaming, gamification in a corporate environment is fun, engaging, often social, highly personalized, and results in a win-win for everyone involved.  

How do employees experience gamification? 

Employees can experience gamification in numerous ways.  

Some of the ways in which gamification examples have been used successfully include employee onboarding, ongoing training, coaching and feedback, and aligning employees with corporate culture and organizational goals. 

In addition to corporate training practices, including lectures and educational packs, employees can experience micro-learning using their mobile devices, where they can engage with materials that help train and reinforce that training in their own time and as part of the flow of work, and learn in a fun and sustainable way. This can take the form of a storytelling narrative; for example, where the employee makes their way through the story while picking up learnings along the way.  

With the leading gamification platform now including ChatGPT in its suite of offerings, these features just got exponentially better.  

Corporate gamification elements, such as challenges, can be experienced by employees on an individual level, at a team level, or on an organizational level.  

In a team environment, employees can be part of a gaming narrative, such as a racing car scenario. Job-related tasks, such as completing learning, closing a sale, and other achievements can become challenges that enable employees to compete with each other (or themselves!) in a fun and healthy, constructive way.  way. The result is a more engaged team and of course significantly better overall results.   

As an individual, gamification can be offered to develop specific skills, or in receiving feedback from a manager.  

Common gamification examples in terms of how employees can practically experience gamification include: 

Leaderboards These introduce an element of competition, which always gets competitive juices flowing. Many organizations reset their leaderboards regularly so as not to discourage newcomers and keep leaders on their toes. 

Levels Gamification can become boring if there are no levels to pass, which are an element of challenge and growth. Levels are a key part of helping employees feel they are making progress. 

Badges The term “badge of honor” showcases how much badges mean to people in terms of demonstrating their achievements. A badge is truly “earned,” and employees are generally very proud to show off their accomplishments. 

Points Points can be virtual, used solely for bragging rights, but they can also be exchanged for real-life items, such as company swag, in a virtual store. 

Get a sneak peek of the Centrical platform in action. 

5 Gamification examples in a corporate workspace 

Below, we’ll explore a few examples of successfully implemented gamification in a corporate setting: 

Cisco 

Cisco has successfully made use of gamification in its social media training programs. Called “Aspire”, this was even tailored to specific roles – for example, sales executives learn to use Twitter to start conversations with prospects, while HR professionals can strengthen their LinkedIn skills. The “game” that employees play looks similar to computer games such as The Sims or League of Legends. Employees can advance levels and earn badges for themselves and their team.  

Microsoft 

Microsoft was looking to make contact center service agents more engaged, and productive, with a feeling of increased responsibility. Turning to Centrical, Microsoft implemented a dynamic program that rewarded agents with points and badges and offered microlearning and personalized goals in a fun and engaging way.  

The program led to a 12% drop in absenteeism, an increase of 10% in terms of calls per shift, and after implementation, 78% of agents said they felt more empowered and ready to do better at their work. 

Siemens  

Siemens has taken the concept of corporate and workplace gamification even further. Commenting on the rise of a generation that is growing up on things like eSports, Siemens USA CEO Barbara Humpton notes the following: “We can’t expect a generation of digital natives who never experienced an analog workplace to want to go back in time. They will join us if the workspaces and tools we provide them clearly represent the future. They’re looking for technology that’s as intuitive as their smartphones and personal computers. They will come along if software development environments are as fun to master as their video games.” 

She continues, “This is why the pursuit of gamification – making industrial technology more accessible and easier to use – must be central to the digital transformation of factories and infrastructure.” (emphasis added) 

IBM 

IBM implemented a digital badge pilot program, and the results exceeded almost everyone’s expectations. The program encouraged the completion of courses, offering a badge on completion.  

The results? A 226% increase in course completions after badges were introduced, and a staggering 694% increase in passing their end-of-course exam. 

Deloitte 

For its Leadership Academy, Deloitte implemented powerful gamification tools to drive key results. This involves making use of missions, badges, and leaderboards, including unlocking secret levels along the way. Since introducing this program, Deloitte has seen phenomenal results, including an increase of 47% in terms of users returning to the site each week. 

Gamification examples in the corporate training 

A great gamification example in corporate training is HP. HP wanted to train channel partners to sell multiple products, ensuring that these partners were highly knowledgeable and well-equipped to close sales. 

HP turned to Centrical to educate partners, motivate them to sell, and provide all of this at scale and in an engaging way. A gaming narrative was used – with users able to earn points and exchange these for real swag in a Centrical-provided virtual store.  

The results were nothing short of amazing: after three months with the platform, 31% of users engaged with learning at least once a week, with many logging in even more frequently. Most importantly, completion of training modules jumped by 50X.   

Gamification examples in employee engagement 

Another corporate gamification example, this time to boost employee engagement, is from Webhelp – one of Europe’s largest business process outsourcers (BPO) organizations.  

Webhelp was looking to assist its employees focus on goals, challenge themselves, and reinforce knowledge using microlearning. For this, they turned to Centrical.  

After implementing Centrical, Webhelp saw a 50% increase in time to proficiency during agent onboarding, and a 6% reduction in short term absence.  

How can gamification help your organization? 

Learning from these gamification examples, there are so many ways that gamification can help your organization., including: 

• More effective onboarding 
• Accelerated time to proficiency 
• Boosting employee engagement 
• Reducing absenteeism 
• Enabling continuous learning and professional growth 
• Aligning teams with the organizations’s vision, culture, and goals 
• And more 

Centrical as a solution to gamify your workplace 

Many of these practical gamification examples were real-life success stories from Centrical customers, whish include leading companies around the globe.  

The Centrical platform’s gamified approach is used to motivate employees, retain talent, and inspire teamwork. The platform is best-in-class, leveraging a variety of elements to gamify and elevate the entire employee lifecycle, including: 

• Advanced gamification 
• Personalized, AI-powered microlearning 
• Real-time performance management 
• Augmented Coaching 
• Integrated Quality Management

Trusted by leading organizations across the globe, such as Verizon, SwissLife, and others, Centrical offers the most comprehensive corporate gamification solution on the market.  

Final thoughts 

These real-life examples of corporate gamification show just how pervasive, and how powerful, gamification can be. Below are a few key takeaways: 

• Gamification at work is not gaming on the job; rather, it is the application of game elements applied to business context 
• Employees can experience gamification at work in a number of ways, including moving up on a leaderboard, passing levels, and earning badges for completing work-related tasks, such as meeting a goal or completing a line of training 
• There are many examples of successful implementation gamification in a corporate setting 
• Corporate gamification has led to solid results when it comes to onboarding, learning and development, boosting sales, reducing absenteeism, and more. 

Ready to implement gamification in your organization? Download our gamification buyer’s guide.

The Centrical platform has delivered proven results leading organizations across industries and the globe , and we would love to discuss how we can partner with your organization to deliver long-term, sustainable results. Schedule your personalized overview from a gamification expert by clicking here, and watch us in action with a sneak preview.