Gamification At Work — Myth or Reality?

In the past decade the word gamification has been used several times with reference to employee engagement, motivation and talent management.

But what is gamification?

In simple terms, gamification is the process of using simple elements of a game, such as points, rewards and teams to make a regular process more engaging and fun.

With the increasing dominance of millennials at the workplace this technique has been used in traditional domains such as talent recruitment, training, and even performance appraisal to make the process more engaging.

What is interesting to see is why this strategy seems to be working?

Beats the boredom:

Many organisations have realised that employees are bored of working in similar patterns and need a new approach to maintain their motivation at work. Gamifying any process introduces a new element to explore and thus beats the boredom that haunts many employees.

For instance, PWC’s branch in Hungary gamified their recruitment process to hire better talent. They launched a virtual game called Multipoly, which gave the candidates an opportunity to form teams and solve business problems to get a feel of their job.

Since the launch of this game, the company witnessed an incredible increase in the number of candidate applications and have even been able to hire better talent.

Helps build a community:

Hectic deadlines and long working hours reduce the social element in most organisations, leaving the employees feeling demotivated and distant. Since most gamification techniques focus on team play, it gives employees an opportunity to bond with their peers and to build a support system within the workplace.

For example, Puma India has an annual sports league where in employees are divided into sports houses and they compete in several sporting events. The employees have a strong sense of belonging to their respective houses as it gives them a sense of community.

Should every organisation use gamification techniques?

Even though there are enough case studies to suggest that gamification is a good technique to be used at work, it is essential that an organisation understand the pulse of its employees before implementing it. Gamification plays on the emotions and the psychology of the users, which are highly subjective. Hence replication of a model that has worked in the past may not be the best approach here.

Try to give your employees an experience that matches their rewards and gaming psychology, or else even your gamification initiative may not be successful in engaging them.