Gamification in Training: Best Practices in 2024

Gamification within a business team context has been shown to be extremely effective: 90% of employees say gamification makes them more productive, 60% report increased engagement, and companies leveraging gamification have been shown to be up to seven times more profitable than those that don’t. This is especially true when it comes to corporate training. Without gamification, training can be dry, boring, and ineffective. With gamification training, however, you’ll see levels of engagement and effectiveness go through the roof. Gamification training has emerged as a key best practice when it comes to company training. There are huge advantages to gamification training and getting started is easier than many people think.

In this post to the Centrical Blog, we’ll cover what gamification training is, compare it with traditional training, how to add elements of gamification in corporate training, some success stories, and key takeaways.

What is gamification training?

Gamification training involves using elements of gaming –including friendly competition, context, storytelling, and rewards –and applying these in a training environment. Whether the company training is around employee onboarding, the learning of a specific skill set, or making team members more effective in general, gamification has a central role to play. Gamification can take the form of game narratives, of leaderboards, rewards, virtual coins, and more. In fact, any kind of behavior can be incentivized through gamification.

Benefits of company training gamification

• Increased engagement: This is achieved by making training more interactive, more personal, more fun and challenging –and also by providing recognition and appreciation
• An inspired, cohesive team: When there are shared goals, healthy and fun competition, excitement, and communication and feedback between employees and their managers, there will be an inspired team
• A happier work environment: The game-like experience and its effects help employees enjoy their work more, leading to a happier work environment
• More motivated employees: Human beings have different motivations; whether intrinsic or extrinsic, gamification taps into each and tends to result in goals being met and surpassed
• Increased retention: When people are engaged and feel like a valued part of their organization, companies see significantly better retention rates
• Instant feedback: Feedback is golden, and company training gamification allows seamless feedback, which is beneficial for all levels of employees

Comparing gamification training vs traditional training

Traditional company training relies on one-to-many presentations, individual study, simulations, case studies, and similar methods of imparting the training messages. The disadvantages, in this case, are that training can be boring, easily forgotten, and ineffective. Moreover, this type of training is routine and does not “bind” the employee to the company at all. Compare this with gamification training benefits. With gamification training, the training is interesting, challenging, interactive, fun and importantly, memorable. Gamification training truly engages the employees across learning types, making training more personalized, and ultimately, more effective.

In advertising, they say “the medium is the message.” This is just as true when it comes to company training: does the company want to be known as being old-fashioned, static, and boring, or fun, innovative, and cutting-edge.

In short, gamification training is a triple win: a win for the individual employee, a win for the employee’s team, and a win for the company.

How to add gamification elements in corporate training?

Gamification training can be added to almost any element of corporate training and applied to initiatives across the enterprise. This includes onboarding new hires, engaging and retaining top talent, upskilling employees, creating positive competition within sales teams, helping contact center team members hit their KPIs, empowering frontline employees, and creating a happier, more productive workforce.

Some innovative ways that gamification training can be added include:

• Gamifying performance and delivering personalized, real-time feedback and support
• Driving targeted improvement with team competitions, personal challenges, and progressing game narratives
• Recognizing excellence with peer and manager kudos, points, badges, and leaderboards
• Inspiring connection between employees –and between managers and employees –through integrated conversations, social recognition, knowledge sharing, and continuous feedback

With all the obvious benefits, the biggest question is why more companies aren’t incorporating gamification training. The answer is complicated and varies across companies and industries. Some companies don’t even know that gamification training exists. Others are intimidated by gamification training and don’t realize how easy it is to add this internally. Still, others are just stuck in their ways and are not inclined to innovate.

But one thing is for sure: organizations are increasingly implementing gamification training across their company, especially after seeing the great results that gamification has to offer, and how easy it is to engage a gamification training provider.

Gamification training examples

When it comes to gamification in training and development success stories, we’ve seen many examples, with two outlined below.

Swiss Life Select, a subsidiary of one of Europe’s largest insurance companies, wanted to train employees on selling a new suite of products. In a move that was in line with its reputation for innovation, the company turned to gamified training, and partnered with Centrical to provide a gamified mobile app experience.

Consultants were offered personalized dynamic goals, which they could track in real-time. The platform provided challenges, interactions with colleagues, and a push for consultants to lift their game. The results? 10.4% more sales per agent, and 45% higher sales for new products –with no changes to employees’ compensation plans.

Another example of gamification training is HP. HP’s challenge was to motivate channel partners and boost product sales. The company identified the fact that channel partners needed training and education on HP products, turning to Centrical to provide gamification training.

Channel sales employees were onboarded into a game narrative, allowing them to attain points, which were redeemable for real HP swag. The missions linked to courses, and employees were hooked on the new training, with a massive 31% engaging with the learning at least once a week. Where this program was deployed –compared to training areas where it was not – completion of training activities grew by over 50 times, and the number of average learning modules voluntarily taken grew by a whopping 20 times.

These are just two examples of many in terms of how leading companies have integrated gamification into company training and have driven real results. (To see it for yourself, check out a preview of the Centrical platform.)

How to search and select the best gamification training software for your needs

To find the right gamification training software for your needs, look out for key indicators, including:

• Customers: Ensure that real, well-known customers are delighted with the results from the gamification training software
• Meaningful metrics: Has the gamification training software in question moved the needle –can they prove it with actual metrics such as increases in sales or productivity?
• Personalization: Does it deliver personalized learning and others features at scale?
• Partners: Is it part of a robust and integrated partner ecosystem?

Once you’ve found a product that speaks to you, set up a demo or use these (or your own enterprise criteria) to vet and evaluate if the solution is indeed exactly what you’re looking for.

Centrical as a gamification training platform

Centrical empowers leaders to proactively engage their remote, hybrid, or in-office workforce through personalized microlearning. Leveraging advanced gamification, the Centrical platform delivers these bite-sized learning modules on a regular basis, with follow-up modules based on performance. This method has been proven time and again to boost employee motivation and engagement, increase productivity, and help teams smash their KPIs and goals. You can inspire, reward, provide valuable feedback, share knowledge, and connect in a personalized way, at scale.

Key Takeaways

• The principle is simple: gamification training incorporates game mechanics (competition, narrative, rewards, etc.) into a non-game (e.g., corporate training) environment.
• When compared with traditional training, gamification training has proven to be more personal, engaging, challenging, and overall, a more effective method. Gamification training can be applied across the enterprise, including onboarding, learning and development, better engaging frontline employees, and boosting overall productivity and revenue.
• There are a variety of ways to incorporate gamification training, including gamifying performance with personalized, real-time feedback, driving targeted improvement with team competitions, personal challenges, and progressing game narratives, etc.
• While some enterprises have remained loyal to traditional methods and might not be inclined to innovate, enterprises (including their competitors) are increasingly incorporating gamified training and are seeing results.