How Using Gamification in Business Drives Better Outcomes

Over the past several years, gamification has found itself assuming an ever-increasing role within organizations. Looking for a new way to engage, teach, reward, and retain employees, Companies now turn to gamification when dealing with HR-related issues. Gamified concepts have begun being incorporated in real-world processes such as recruitment, learning and development. A rapidly growing field, Game-mechanics are now instrumental in improving performance in sales, customer service and training.

Let’s take a closer look:

Gamification 101: What is Gamification?

Gamification is the use of game mechanics, behavioral elements and design techniques in non-gaming contexts. In layman’s terms, it entails taking key elements that drive engagement in games, such as design, activity structures, visible achievements and competition, and applying them to things that are not naturally games (e.g. learning, buying airline tickets or completing work assignments). The most basic application of game mechanics, which has been most commonly used in gamified environments are points, badges and leaderboards.

Despite its potentially misleading name, gamification isn’t simply games built for business purposes. Rather, it is all about expanding the implementation of an already existing experience or process in the business, as opposed to building something new from scratch. Gamification does not equate to games. However, in the workplace, gamification can definitely be a game-changer.

How can Gamification Boost Business Results?

Every company, organization or business wants its employees to reach their fullest- potential. A productive, engaged and motivated workforce heavily influences an organization’s ability to grow and succeed. The main goal for most companies is to drive business performance. Engaging and motivating employees toward improvement and excellence in their area of expertise, in an effective and sustainable way is a surefire way to get there.

So, how can gamification be used to achieve that?

These four areas illuminate gamification’s unique ability to supercharge your company and significantly impact business results:

Engagement:

Employee engagement is firmly linked to key organizational outcomes. Properly-engaged employees can save companies billions of dollars. Studies show that properly engaged employees double their company’s customer satisfaction rates. Conversely, companies plagued by a lack of employee engagement suffer. Gamification allows companies which lack a culture of engagement to create one from scratch, and for those with existing frameworks to considerably up their game (pun-intended). With gamified platforms, employees can easily track their own work progress, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and be directed toward actions that will help them progress and succeed. By making goals, achievements and benchmarks visible, gamification creates commitment and dedication among users, turning an otherwise mundane work aspect into a fun engaging activity. The recognition, status and acknowledgement employees gain through gamified feedback mechanisms such as social badges and kudos, motivates employees and drives them to outperform.

Learning and Onboarding

Gamification can revolutionize the way your company keeps employees up-to-date regarding newly-launched products and can train them according to dynamic guidelines. Additionally, gamified platforms can super-charge the onboarding process of new employees. Gamified learning will typically be characterized by adding game elements to areas such as task completion or participation. This will be done in the form of employees engaging with learning materials, solving quizzes, completing simulations and more.

Onboarding learning projects are generally shorter, since the knowledge being bestowed is essential for new employees’ ability to complete assignments and get going at work. Onboarding can be made a more seamless and engaging experience using mechanics like game levels. Employees will start at the beginner level and advance as they grow in their understanding of the company regulations, processes, etc. This will help new employees adapt, experience success and form habits that will help them gain proper perspective regarding their roles.

When combined with Microlearning, gamification can yield an incredible ROI . Using small learning chunks and short tasks while rewarding employees on their engagement has helped companies onboard employees faster.

In this environment, employees complete more tasks and better relate to their skill levels, compared to simply watching instructional videos or reviewing presentations.

Adaptation to Change

Companies that set out to conduct management changes often fall short (or fail completely) due to lack of engagement. Organizations need to constantly adapt to a ceaseless stream of evolving technology, rapid market changes, and to fickle consumer tendencies. If their employees are unmotivated and unwilling to be a part of the change, organizations have no chance of succeeding. By gamifying the change processes, employees can receive instant feedback when they stray from the right path. They can be reminded why the change is necessary and of its objective, and enables managers to engage with their team members in ensuring they are all onboard. Human competitive spirit, coupled with the excitement and desire to progress toward new levels keeps users engaged throughout, and helps smooth the process of adapting to changes .

Alignment with Organizational Goals

Gamification drives behaviors and then measures them. To drive an increase in sales, gamification will encourage more calls, qualifying leads, meetings with clients, and more. Rather than focusing on results, gamification focuses on the activities that prompt sales. Gamification is a great way to promote the desired behaviors that lead to organizational goals. It is coming up as a software ingredient that connects between employees and objectives, along with organizational values. When properly designed and implemented, gamification leverages the motivations for feedback, rewards and achievements, and produces interactions that inspire employees to become better and better every day.

Getting Started with Gamification for the Business

We’ve just covered some of the basics of gamification, and the benefits that gamification brings to the business. But what’s next? Here are a few things to consider as you implement gamification for the business:

• Choose the right platform. The gamification platform you choose should gamify the entire employee experience, not just goals. The platform should also be able to scale to your business needs, and include the right security requirements.
• Go beyond the leaderboard. When selecting a gamification platform for the business, don’t just stop at a leaderboard that features top performers. Make an impact and move the middle with a full suite of gamification features, including badges, levels, points, recognition, etc.
• Ensure that the gamification platform includes social sharing/employee contributions. Employees have an incredible amount of institutional knowledge they can share with peers and should be able to easily offer those tips and pieces of advice.
• Don’t forget the managers. Managers are employees, too, and managerial burnout is very real. Help make their days and coaching sessions easier and more productive with real-time performance insights and augmented coaching.
• Set your business up for success with communication and mainstreaming gamification. Gamification for the business might be new to employees, and they will need to know that there is a new platform coming, why gamification is part of the business, and how to use it. And as with forming a new habit, daily practice is the key. Once employees are familiar with the new platform and get into the habit, you will see increased engagement and a boost in metrics and revenue!

In closing, gamification can enhance performance in a variety of ways. Successful gamification projects will improve employee engagement, shorten onboarding and facilitate more efficient and meaningful learning experiences. Whether by aligning its workforce with company-wide goals or by smoothing out the adaption toward organizational change, companies benefit significantly from the unique elements of gamification.

About Centrical

Centrical is an employee-centric performance management platform – the “fitness tracker” for the connected workforce of the future.  Centrical empowers employees to boost their work performance through hyper-personalised goals, targeted microlearning, real time performance management, and AI-powered, augmented coaching. Deployed with the world’s leading organizations, Centrical helps drive employee engagement and productivity day by day. Find out how Centrical can help transform your organization with a quick preview, or book a live demo.