Employees who are happy in their work, perform better. Employees who are happy will work harder towards organisational goals, will be more loyal and will be more productive.

Gamification is one way to make work and targets more fun for employees, making them happier in their work, more productive and more engaged.

Gamification is the addition of game mechanics to non-game activities. Examples of game mechanics include things such as point scoring, competition with others, collaboration, exploration, a sense of progress and obtaining achievements. You might recognise these in some of your own sales KPI measurement tools, such as sales leaderboards which evoke the desire a compete.

Gamification taps into the human desire for instant gratification, rewards and feedback – a desire even more prevalent in millennials who have been growing up enjoying gamification in their everyday apps and technology. Anyone who uses Trip Advisor may have experienced their badge system, awarding reviewers with badges (achievements) when they leave more reviews. This is an example of gamification utilised in a non-gaming activity (resulting in more reviews for TripAdvisor!).

It is commonly used in marketing and advertising campaigns (remember the Walkers crisps ‘Do us a flavour’ campaign?) but is also increasingly being incorporated internally in the workplace to motivate and engage employees, improve productivity and reduce staff turnover.

Gamification taps into the same simple desires of humans which make games so popular and addictive. If we can make a task more fun by adding in a gaming element, we are more likely to enjoy completing it and perform well.

Motivating – employees feel motivated by the opportunity to earn incentives or rewards.

Reinforcing – gamification involves regular feedback which means regular small but important reinforcers are being used to give people a sense of progress and achievement.

Competitive – people are competitive by nature and motivated by goals. Gamification inspires the natural competitive edge in employees, even when they are only competing with themselves.

Fun – when people are enjoying themselves, they tend to perform better.

Transparent – gamification offers a level of transparency which gives employees a sense of trust with the rewards system.

Measurable – for both employees and managers, gamification makes progress more measurable and comparable.

Other underlying problems

When staff are unmotivated and they don’t care about what they do, productivity takes a hit. Gamification is not necessarily going to be the panacea if there are some other fundamental problems which are not being addressed. For example, the main issue could be a poor organisational culture; harbouring negative attitudes and low morale. Or the problem could be low performing managers who are not successfully engaging with and motivation their teams. Gamifying an otherwise-failing area is not going to fix it.

Over-used and poorly executed

Gamifying initiatives are also at risk of failing when they are overused and poorly executed. By making everything a game, employees could feel over-monitored and feel they have no autonomy which can be very demotivating. Conversely, already-unmotivated employees could use the game as a fantastic way to waste time and become even less productive, if the game is not incorporated into the daily culture properly.

Inappropriately used

Gamification is about introducing gaming psychology to existing processes rather than adding in new games. This way, we are considering how to adapt and improve the current way of working to make it more engaging and motivating, rather than creating a new game which might not be wholly appropriate.

Introducing new games at work isn’t just going to fix all of a company’s problems, but incorporating gaming psychology into existing reward systems, incentives, change programmes, training courses and coaching methods can have a positive impact on the success of these initiatives.

If you are looking for ways to engage your employees, improve productivity, inspire your staff or improve retention, you might want to consider ways you can gamify your existing processes.

How do you measure employee success currently? Which KPI’s do you use? How do you motivate teams to collaborate? How do you inspire a culture of idea development? How do you measure customer experience? How do you engage with your customers?

We look at all these elements (and more) when thinking about improving employee engagement, and we look at the whole company to understand the bigger picture and where (or IF) gaming mechanics can add value. If you would like to find out more, have a chat with Richard at Brightstone!