Haven’t we all enjoyed playing a good game of monopoly back in our childhood days? All of us die to get back to those days, don’t we? Well, don’t get too excited and think about playing monopoly at work, but it can be as close.
Gamification has become a growing trend in most digital business environments. It is today’s healthier cup of coffee. It comes with a fun quotient and can help fatigued employees bounce back on their toes.
What is Gamification?
Everyone wants their employees to be extremely productive and engaged. But people are still struggling to find out how. You just uncovered one of the most effective answers, GAMIFICATION. It is the use of game mechanics in a non-game context. The thumb rule is, everyone loves games and the healthy dose of competition and rewards associated with it.
Many firms are already embracing the use of gamification at the workplace because it fits in naturally into the employee's world. It makes them more productive and useful in a relaxed and fun way. It motivates employees to learn new skills and adopt techniques to fight and compete against their colleagues. A healthy battle never fails to keep the environment charged.
If you have tracked your activity on wearables like FitBit or Apple watch to win badges and ran that extra mile to better your friend’s score, that is Gamification for you!
So how does Gamification actually work?
Let’s pick your company, for example. By using the techniques of Gamification, the HR team of your company will try to use constant positive feedback approach to motivate you and your colleagues.
Gamification also helps in simplifying tasks that are complicated and makes them easy for you and other employees to carry out with little or no stress. Essentially, it is 75% psychology (engaging the mindset of employees) and 25% technology (using technical know-how to make them compete).
Some factors that can influence the success of the game include rules, rewards, and dedicated management. Scientifically, when you win a game or are promoted to another level, your brain releases Dopamine. This doubles your enthusiasm, inspires you to work harder, strive for newer goals and combats boredom. Oh, there, you have achieved employee engagement.
This process does not need any major changes to your current infrastructure and can be incorporated in your current environment. Promote activities like creating public leaderboards, incentives and rewards for consistent performance and surprise special gifts for out-of-the-box ideas and thinking.
It is also important to promote the social aspect of the game because a lot of people love to boast their achievements on social media. Strengthening the social aspect of the game will get other employers also to compete and work harder.
Yet another point is saturation. Games can get boring too. It is important to keep the ball rolling and keep the excitement high.
Target Areas to use gamification:
- Learning and Development: Learning can be fun. Up the fun quotient by gamifying the learning. More employees will use them and broaden and sharpen their skills.
- Customer Support: Customer satisfaction is the key to a successful organization. Gamification can encourage employees to improve customer service.
- Improving Sales: It enhances collaboration between sales agents and rewards all steps that were taken by the sales team
- Teamwork: Games are about promoting team spirit. A closely knit team can do wonders that one could never have dreamt off
- Marketing: Through gamification, employees can be motivated to share information and ideas about their organization, its products, and services.
- Human Resources: Gamification is imperative to the Human Resource department. It can help them track employees performance, increase referrals, and develop leadership skills.
- Product Development: Gamification leads to the release of Dopamine in the body. This helps you to feel encouraged and paves the way for new ideas and innovations.
- Creativity: Ultimately, creativity is the factor that makes a huge difference in a competitive market. Employees that bring such wild ideas that can potentially break sales records, should be given surprise rewards
Gamification is the way forward. It helps departments and employees to communicate better, deliver better products and enhances collaboration. Why wait? Go, Gamify your way to employee engagement now!