How Companies are Leveraging Gamification to Improve Employee Engagement By Darshan.K, Assistant Editor, CIOTech Outlook Team

How Companies are Leveraging Gamification to Improve Employee Engagement

Darshan.K, Assistant Editor, CIOTech Outlook Team | Thursday, 13 June 2024, 13:06 IST

At any given time there are a billion people gaming online, the average gamer engages in 8.45 hours of gaming per week. One of the unique qualities of video games is the fact that they excel at retaining attention of the user for a long time when numerous forms of content/activity fail to do so. It has all the psychological engineering of keeping an individual laser-focused on the objectives that must be achieved. Gamification allows the conversion of mundane everyday tasks to entertaining yet rewarding activities.

According to Gartner, 70% of 2000 leading companies globally use gamification. Corporations are taking note of these video game mechanics and have gamified their internal structures to boost their output while keeping their employees’ motivation high and rewarding accordingly. The American Psychology Association has noted in its numerous studies that the attention span of an average individual has drastically reduced over the years owing to the rise of multiple forms of internet content consumption, resulting in people being unable to focus on their tasks for a long time. Corporations have leveraged numerous tried and tested in-game mechanics in their offices to boost employee engagement and foster workplace innovation, and these are the popular ones.

"Gamification is as important as social and mobile," William "Bing" Gordon,Partner at Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

Points and Rewards Systems

Points and rewards systems might be commonly used in retail to incentivize customers to be loyal to their chain of stores. However, this points system is also leveraged in white-collar offices. Employees are given points for meeting or exceeding targets or simply demonstrating consistent behavior. These points can be leveraged for additional vacation days. Similar to how getting a high score in a game keeps the player engaged, workers feel their efforts are being rewarded and will continue to build a career there rather than elsewhere. It is easy to observe companies that have rewarded good performance to have a high retention rate.

Microsoft uses gamification within its employee training programs, particularly for its global sales force. The company developed a platform called "Microsoft Sales Academy," where employees earn points for completing training modules, participating in role-playing scenarios, and achieving sales targets. These points can be redeemed for various rewards, fostering a competitive yet collaborative learning environment.

"Imagine a world where there is no longer a divide between what you have to do and what you want to do. That is the power of gamification," Yu Kai Chow, Founder & Chief Mentor, Octalysis Prime.

Badges and Certifications

Steam has a section that gives badges for achieving trivial non-main quest objectives. This has incentivized players to spend more time playing those games to collect all of them. These badges serve as a visual representation of accomplishments. Companies, too, are rewarding their employees with certification for completing training programs, mastering new skills, or achieving sales targets. These honors foster a sense of recognition and incentivize them to learn more and advance in their career rather than staying stagnant.

IBM's Digital Badge Program awards employees with badges for completing training programs, acquiring new skills, and contributing to projects. These badges serve as verifiable credentials that employees can display on their profiles, both within the company and on professional networking sites like LinkedIn. This system not only incentivizes continuous learning but also helps employees showcase their expertise.

Leaderboards and Competition

Numerous games have leaderboards where the competition is cutthroat. Tetris is a famous example. A fun fact about this is that many players have achieved such high scores that the game breaks down when they hit a specific figure, so it is considered a status symbol if you break the game with your score. Introducing a competitive element through leaderboards is a technique leveraged by companies with high head counts. This listing acts as a mechanism to awaken the employees’ competitive spirit. This creates a sense of urgency and motivation for players to climb the ladder. This mechanism, however, is exercised with caution as they have to ensure a sense of balance so that the competitive spirit doesn’t undermine teamwork and collaboration.

"Deloitte Leadership Academy." This program uses leaderboards to rank participants based on their progress and performance in various training activities. This competitive element encourages employees to actively engage with the content and strive for excellence, enhancing their learning experience and leadership skills.

"Games and gamification can lead to high levels of learner engagement and motivation," Karl Kapp, Founder, L&D Mentor Academy.

Challenges and Quests

Challenges or Quests are what drive the game forward, give the game direction, and give the route to the end goal. Gone are the days when the most fantastic game was about an Italian plumber saving a princess. Game developers now consult with behavioral psychologists to design such intriguing challenges that they demand absolute attention and concentration from a player. Corporate management has now restructured the way they present daily duties to their employees; they have designed it in such a way that they create a sense of adventure while simultaneously being in line with organizational goals. This applies to short-term tasks and long-term projects, sometimes incorporating RPG (Role-play game) elements to command attention. Completion of these tasks can lead to the aforementioned rewards.

“Google Code Jam,” a coding competition, challenges internal employees and external participants to solve complex algorithmic problems. These challenges aren’t just engaging the employees; they demand unprecedented levels of teamwork with people they aren’t familiar with (similar to online co-op games). Solving the complex problem with your teammates resembles an element of a fantasy story-rich game where people form parties to battle strong foes that they can’t take on alone. This process helps the management to identify talented individuals who are exceptional at teamwork and are great problem solvers.

"Gamification is the process of using game thinking and game dynamics to engage audiences and solve problems," Gabe Zichermann, Co-Founder, Two Spoons Creamery.

The real beauty of video games and gamification is that you can break complex tasks into simple objectives, which results in an easy way to achieve the main objective without worrying about the main objective. While video games have the reputation of being a leisure activity, we cannot deny the fact that certain elements, when translated to daily activities, can be powerful means of completing said activities.