Gamification, the social enterprise, and the future of your business

It’s been happening over a period of time — you may or may not have thought too deeply about it. But technologies originally aimed at consumers are now a driving force in the enterprise. It’s a trend that’s set to continue. Work is becoming more playful, social and flexible, and, as a result, people are getting more productive and efficient.

Take collaboration software as an example. It now has a lot in common with social media. Some business apps are even incorporating game design to encourage employee participation. It’s happening: work is getting more fun.

I’m not just talking about today’s work environment, with table tennis in the communal area and comfortable sofas in the breakout areas — which is a world away from the office blocks I worked in 15 years ago. I mean the work itself: everything’s changed — the way people share, communicate, collaborate, teach, learn, access technology, and search for and find information.

So, what technologies will be commonplace in the office of tomorrow? Here are my thoughts.

1. More playful

For example, Badgeville is a gamification app used by the likes of Deloitte, Samsung and Dell. It awards badges to employees for any type of goal you want, from expense reports to e-learning. And there’s even a game app for Master Data Management, which can be tedious at the best of times. Workers get rewards for “cleansing missions” to clean up SAP data, with a progress bar and a prize.

2. More social

By 2020, Millennials will make up half the workforce, and three quarters by 2025. This demographic is already driving massive organisational change, particularly through the use of social media.

It means work will continue to get more social, embedding things like instant chat communication, video, and quick polls. It could mean those long-drawn out meetings where the whole team gets pulled into the boardroom to make a decision on the marketing strategy, for example, will be completely transformed. Everyone signs in to a video call, supporting links and data are shared digitally, and decisions can be influenced by votes cast by the click of a button.

3. More flexible

Mobility and flexible working have obviously exploded, and I hope it’s a trend that’s set to continue. I say that because while there have been one or two examples recently of companies — such as Yahoo — scaling back on remote working policies, if it’s done right it can have a tremendous impact on everything from worker productivity to employee retention. For me, and to borrow an increasingly well used phrase, work is what you do, not where you go. And so I’m betting on more and more companies appreciating the benefits of flexible working, and that means we’ll say goodbye to the notion of the 9–5 or even sitting at a desk. When, where, and how you do the job will all be negotiable, as long as the work gets done.

More and more processes are becoming digital and going online, allowing employees to input, share and access information from anywhere and on any device. As a result, workers don’t even have to be located in the same place to have an effective meeting.

4. More connected

If this is the case — moving towards a more virtual office — then technologies such as wearables and 3D headsets will keep the workforce more connected. Headsets in particular, like Microsoft’s HoloLens, have huge potential for virtual collaboration, sharing information, and linking together geographically-distributed teams.

Emerging technologies such as mixed reality and augmented reality let you overlay the real world with digital information, and we’ve only scratched the surface with these. In the future, workers will be able to share immersive physical/virtual spaces where they can demonstrate products and interior designs in 3D-VR, and pull graphs and video presentations out of the walls.

5. More efficient

Lastly, work in the future will, hopefully, be more efficient, particularly as we embed automation and intelligence more deeply into our businesses. Meanwhile, application and networking speeds, data processing, analytics, all of these things will continue to speed up, making business operations even faster.

As these five trends change both the workplace and the way we work. By putting the consumer at the centre, the connected business will revolutionise the way individuals and entire departments communicate with each other. It will open up a free flow of information between engaged co-workers. The one constant will be the need to manage your corporate data efficiently.

You’ll still need to have a robust, reliable and secure platform for your employees to effectively collaborate and communicate, share files, and store, search and access information. For more on how you can implement a future-ready content and collaboration infrastructure, why not check out Box’s article.