Corporate Gamification: A Game-Changer for Management Best Practice

Win with Corporate Gamification

In today’s article, we’ll take a deep dive into corporate gamification – what it is, why it works and common applications. We’ll compare its nobility in KPI and training focus as a driver of performance. Then we’ll look at its value to onboarding and adoption. Lastly, we’ll evaluate measures of success for corporate gamification against soft skills. By the end of this article, you should have a firmer grasp on gamification and its role in corporate institutions. If you’re considering gamification as a tool to improve your training adoption, improve KPIs or boost workplace morale, this guide should help.

What is Corporate Gamification? 

Corporate Gamification is the process of adding gameplay elements to business targets or employee training within a company. It’s a great way to increase productivity and reduce the costs associated with low engagement which can be as much as 18% annual salary. It’s the answer to ‘how to motivate your team’ for a lot of employers.

Gamification at its core is fun. It brings fun by making daily tasks and training into a game. And there’s really not a culture on earth that doesn’t enjoy games of one sort or another. So, when you make tasks or training fun, you remove some of the perceived drudgery and add a dash of enjoyment that boosts engagement.

It’s all about Motivation!

If you had to guess, how much of each employee’s day do you imagine is wasted? 30 minutes? Two hours? Try three. That’s right. For at least 10% of employees, three hours is absorbed in lost productivity every eight-hour working day. That’s not counting lunches and breaks. What could you do with that time back? How much money, growth and retained resources could your business benefit from?

Oh, and before you blame social media…

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Most time wastage is simply down to bad processes and poor time management.

Remote workers aren’t spared challenges as well. For them, the issue is largely around switching off, avoiding time creep and burnout. It can be a challenge to compartmentalize the day since they don’t have a defined commute. So, working after hours becomes common.

Corporate gamification can help both types of workers, however. Wherever motivation and task management are required, gamification can help to influence and incentives employees to take the desired actions.

It allows for great opportunities for employee engagement by design. We all strive for master, autonomy, social interaction and a sense of purpose. By appealing to these motivators, gamification drives measurable results that companies can report on. And as we have all heard, what get measured gets managed.

Corporate Gamification can also help to make an employee’s role clearer and more defined. They’re rewarded for good performance and get feedback in real time. That, combined with collaboration, lead to an improved sense of wellbeing and shared purpose.

Why Should You Consider Corporate Gamification? 

Employee engagement is one of the single most important company metrics.

Engagement strategies improve productivity, reduce turnover, boost efficiencies, make more money and retain more customers.

Add to that, the happiness and overall wellbeing of employees is positively impacted.

Corporate gamification increases employee engagement through a leveraging of five key behavioral competencies. These are:

  1. Interpersonal – These competencies impact our relations with others. They include communication, teamwork, excitement, persuasion and problem solving. Corporate Gamification can encourage team collaboration to build these soft skills.
  2. Motivational – These competencies showcase our drive. They include motivating others, team building, taking initiative and leading from the front. Gamification can offer opportunities to take on additional projects to groom motivational behaviors.
  3. Individual – These competencies reflect our personal attributes. They include decision making, confidence, technical ability, motivation and teamwork. Gamification can reward and showcase individual performance against targets.
  4. Analytical – These competencies showcase our numerical ability. They include problem solving with data, technical ability, analytics and data manipulation. Corporate Gamification can give purpose to data and encourage data-driven decision making.
  5. Managerial – These competencies focus on leadership skills. They include high-level decision making, managing others, problem solving, planning and analysis. Gamification can inform management’s focus and provide real-time statistics.

Any company using corporate gamification can have a real, tangible impact on these behaviors. Over the long term, this leads to a culture of high performance and accountability. This is on top of the obvious benefits to overall company culture and employee engagement. But what are some examples of companies using gamification in practice?

How Are Businesses Using Corporate Gamification?

01. Improving remote working productivity 

Due to the global pandemic, the adoption of remote working has increased rapidly.

According to Global Workplace Analytics, “Our best estimate is that 25-30% of the workforce will be working-from-home multiple days a week by the end of 2021.” So, there’s no doubt that ensuring peak performance among remote teams is set to increase in importance as well.

We believe corporate gamification is the answer to this.

And several companies are already visibly utilizing gamification with their consumers to this end.

Take Peloton, for example. Their cult-like status is largely due to their use of gamification. At each milestone, participants get notifications of how far they’ve come and where the goalposts lie. They foster a community environment in-session that translates offline. As users get regular check-ins, they stay focused on their goals without feeling overwhelmed. With each success, that dopamine hit encourages them to push forward.

Likewise, companies of the future will need to build tribes of their own. They will need to foster a shared sense of purpose through achievement, just like Peloton does with their users. Business Insider makes it clear, at “1.1 million users, 97% satisfaction, and $607 million in revenue;” this is the way forward. Companies to adopt a gamification-first strategy going into the new year will find successes easier to attain.

02. Skill training and employee gamification 

Progress moves as the pace of light, it seems. With new software and products emerging daily, it’s impossible to maintain a highly-skilled team without regular training. Offering bite-sized gamified training modules is a quick and fool-proof way to ensure learning levels keep ahead of the competition.

The game elements and quick feedback keep employees motivated to complete each module as it’s released. And the fun nature of gamified training means they’ll be excited to put it to good use upon completion.

According to Entrepreneur, “At a time when businesses are finding it challenging to crack the code of engaging a multi-generation and multi-demographics workforce, traditional approaches to onboarding and training can be ineffective. Using the principles of gamification not only makes the learning journey more fun, but also increases the retention of these newly earned skills.”

03. Gamifying sales figures 

Training is one way to make a sales team more effective. But setting targets within a game environment is another. These environments can heal the marketing and sales divide or pit teams against each other for a dose of friendly competition. They can aid remote teams in collaboration and reward incremental performance against goals. Regardless of the product, it is possible, and desirable, to leverage gaming elements in sales.

Apply multiple motivators and different game mechanics such as team and individual accomplishments. Consider different game elements such as leaderboards or progress bars, points or virtual currency, missions or quests, badges, levels of attainments and competencies linked to games. This is likely to increase interest and boost adoption overall.

04. Improving workplace culture in contact centers

If you’ve never working in a contact center, you might not know about the kind of culture it can breed. A drone culture. One where the individual doesn’t feel valued.

Where, while being wildly important to customer satisfaction, many feel a sense of purposelessness. Adrift. Inconsequential. But introducing gamification can help significantly. There are many reasons for this.

First, it breeds healthy competition. Who had the fastest wrap time? Who handled the most calls? Who got the best satisfaction scores? In real time, agents can see how they stack up. They can draw from those stats the motivation to push forward, even after a difficult call. Next, the rewards and recognition they enjoy when reaching milestones encourage further performance. Lastly, the sense of victory being so near can push agents to excellence. And that’s not even including the value managers can glean from real-time reporting and statistics.

Here are three great ways to gamify a contact center:
  1. Offer public recognition – When agents achieve, everyone knows about it. Provide a highly-visible place to showcase top performers and peak teams. Draw attention to and openly celebrate each new entrant onto the high performers board.
  2. Drive friendly competition – When rewards are on offer, people get competitive. And that’s good for your sales & retention figures. How can you create a game out of hitting stretch targets? Should be pretty simple. Just make sure the rewards you offer are enough to whet your agent’s appetites. If you need ideas to reward employees, click here.
  3. Display all scores – To have winners, one must have losers. But those are simply agents with the most opportunity for growth. When you allow all performance scores to be indexable and searchable, comparisons are made. Opportunities for training are identified. Top performers offer sage advice to lower-performing agents. All this teamwork and collaboration fosters a positive environment where no one is left behind. It needn’t be overengineered or super complicated. Simple games with clear rewards and instant feedback provide excellent results for any company.

When you gamify a contact center, you make improvement fun. You provide opportunities for self-assessment. And you encourage agents to uplift one another. The stats you’ll receive can inform your data-driven management decisions and provide clear paths to growth. Lastly, you’ll instill a sense of accomplishment, drive and purpose through healthy competition.

05. Gamifying employee healthy habits

According to Vantage Fit, “A healthier workforce is more engaged, focused and productive.

Being healthy improves the overall quality of life reducing risk factors for diseases.

Furthermore, a healthy workplace will reduce absenteeism and employee turnover. The employer will reap many benefits by promoting employee health in their workplace.” As we all become more concerned with our steps, heart rate and stress levels; how can employers help?

Corporate gamification that links in fitness tracking is becoming popular. Businesses can make quests and encourage fitness competitions to help their teams keep healthy. By offering rewards and visible recognition, they are encouraging participation. And a healthier workforce benefits from the above factors.

06. Time management and Gamification

Time wastage, distraction and overload are all common issues faced in the workplace. Corporate Gamification can reduce these factors by motivating and encouraging employees to develop healthy time habits. So, when games are created to improve team knowledge, repeat contacts reduce. Or when wrap time targets are set, less call idling happens. When team collaborate on a knowledge base, onboarding is more efficient. Over time, tracking trends and adoption can aid management in setting budgets and focus for future training initiatives. By improving time metrics, overall business growth benefits. And managers will spend less time quantifying performance for employee evaluations, too.

07. Imbedding compliance training topics 

As a mandatory program, compliance training is critical. Both in delivery of the information and adherence to its rules. However, most compliance subject matter is horribly dull. It’s full of legal jargon and worrisome consequences. As workplace learners are adults, the prescriptive list of legal requirements can come off as commands. And no one likes being told what to do.

When is the last time you enjoyed reading terms and conditions? Probably never.

But what if you could experience it as a game instead? Each of the sections could be chunked up and simplified to deliver just the basic concept without all the legal speak. Wouldn’t that be easier? You’d probably be more likely to actively participate. And when the going gets tough and you need to rely on the information, the core concepts will come readily to mind.

To really imbed compliance training topics, you need to do a few key things:
  1. Make a regular connection with the employee. Use games to reinforce what they’ve learned on a regular basis to keep it fresh. The more they practice, the more these concepts become habit.
  2. Make an impact on awareness. Don’t just send a dull memo. Present the information in a fun and interactive way. Offer quizzes and prizes for comprehension. Explore case studies and evaluate the consequences of non-compliance through storytelling.

Corporate Gamification can help with both of these elements. When information is presented via a game there’s higher recall, more engagement, better retention and consistent application. They learn not just the ‘what’ of compliance but the ‘why’ as well. This has several distinct individual and business benefits to adoption and team retention.

08. Grow your team’s product knowledge

Product knowledge is important to business success and consumer confidence. It may just be one of the most critical sales skills. When salespeople understand the product inside and out, benefit matching is easier and more compelling. Plus, the confidence that comes from totally understanding a product creates and infectious excitement.

How can gamification help? Well, when used with e-learning, it’s a powerful tool. Of course, it adds fun. That’s a given. But beyond that, gamification can upskill a sales team faster than other methods. Here is why:

  1. Engagement is at an all-time high. Salespeople are reading reams of printed PowerPoints. They are interaction with each product detail in a competitive space. As naturally competitive people, game elements in training speak to a core motivator. According to eLearning Industry, “It creates a sense of excitement within the learners because they feel that they are accomplishing something, thanks to the endorphins that are being released. This excitement leads to a boost in motivation and makes the experience more powerful and memorable.”
  2. Provides a different environment. As opposed to the sales floor, a gamified classroom is about retention and application. There are fewer external factors and performance is more clear-cut. The activities are also more stimulating. Those new challenges grasp attention and engage new brain centers. Adding a layer of variation can increase overall adoption by making the experience more memorable.
  3. Imbedding rewards into culture. While commissions are a tried and true method of driving a sales team’s performance, it’s used less often in training. However, they are just as effective. When you attach rewards to completing core modules and publish leaderboards, that incentive works wonders for uniform adoption of product knowledge.
  4. Boost the competition. Add leaderboards and reward top learners. Encourage them to compete in gaining knowledge and building product memory. Build collaboration as teams work to see who is the best a listing product features or describing benefits.
  5. Skipping the dry delivery. There’s no reason why product information has to remain dull. The lighter and more accessible the content is made, the better the absorption rate. Consider breaking up topics into smaller bite-sized nugget and adding levels so there’s incremental progress. Maybe even include benefit matching exercises as a story-driven narrative full of twists and surprises. These things will help keep the content fresh.
  6. Keep feedback instant. With gamification, it’s got to be correct or the level won’t complete. That instant feedback allows salespeople to course correct in real time. They’ll know what product areas they are weakest in and can devote extra time to those areas.

09. Role previews 

Gamification is also effective in recruitment. Show your candidates what a day in the life of that role holder is like. By doing so through games, candidates enjoy a fun challenge while hiring managers get actionable insights. Story driven games are great for this. They allow you to present real-world scenarios for the candidate to react to. Their decisions in the moment provide a vast amount of insight into how they’d perform in the role. We’ve even seen this approach expanded into full external simulations of operations management like Marriott Hotel’s initiative on Facebook. They’ve proven effective at introducing workplace decision making to a novel, but interested audience of candidates. This could aid in candidate acquisition as well as vetting requirements.

10. Etiquette in the workplace

Every organization has standards for workplace behavior. These can range in nature from appropriate tech use, communication standards, body language and workplace terminology. Companies may want floor teams to provide directions with an open palm gesture or sign off all company emails with ‘best regards’.

Perhaps folded arms are considered inappropriate or workplace computers cannot be used to charge personal devices.

Whatever the required standard, training must take place across the organization. The training needs to be intensive, comprehensive and frequent to maintain clear standards.

By using games to teach this core foundational, learners get real time feedback. They can test their approach against expectation. So, when they meet the standards they are rewarded. If they don’t, they can practice the required etiquette until they do. That reinforcement of learning, application and achievement builds a positive relationship between the behavior and the employee. Over time, it should increase consistent application of desired workplace etiquette. 

11. Effective induction and onboarding

As we welcome new employees into our businesses, we need to provide a good level of base training. Sure, they will learn many skills as they perform in their roles.

But, a foundation of the company and its products is always required. Plus, some integration into the team and corporate structure can smooth this process as well. As with any induction program, it’s good to provide an overview of the policies, processes, culture, responsibilities of the role, code of conduct, corporate vision, history, any compliance training, systems training and product info. Presenting this information via a gamification system can help with absorption.

Some neat ways to gamify onboarding in your company are:

  1. 360 office tour – Before your new hires ever arrive, get them familiar with the office from copy machines to coffee machines with a virtual tour. This is great for shy or introverted employees.
  2. Welcome video – Share a bit of your team’s personality with an animated intro video. Create a bond and communicate special stories in a more engaging way through audiovisual media.
  3. Virtual reality vision – Project an image of the future you see for your company in an interactive 3D experience for your new hires. They’ll live and breathe your ethos, products or services.
  4. Fun topical quizzes – Make learning more incentivizing with interactive quizzes on your game platform. Learn more about the values and goals of the company in a creative way.
  5. Gamified training modules – Create learning paths full of fun interactive levels, pop quizzes and quests to discover. Teach specific skills or topical information with higher rates of adoption.
  6. AR or VR evaluations – Up the stakes with consequential example cases and tests. Keep the training day fun by breaking up classroom learning with environmental sessions around IT, access control, HR policies and security.

12. Teaching soft skills better 

According to The Balance Careers, “Soft skills are non-technical skills that relate to how you work. They include how you interact with colleagues, solve problems, and manage your work.”

This is in opposition to hard skills which are the specific, task related and role-related skills you possess in your field.

Soft skills are more transient.

They can serve you in any role and within any vertical. The good news is, gamification can help you learn both. When gamifying soft skills e-learning, the approach is much the same. Your gamified experience will help participants keep the knowledge for longer because it’s more fun during the learning process.

Corporate game-based learning lets a user practice, in real time. No more waiting for a relevant scenario to unfold naturally. Participants can act out these skills, not just hear about them. For most please, doing is a better teacher than reading. So, game simulators provide a suite of situations for practice. While there are no real-world consequences, success or failure within the scenario is tracked in real time. Users get immediate feedback on how their course of action played out.

They’ll need to use logic and quick thinking to solve these soft skill problems. As they do this more, they will build management skills like strategy, analysis, leadership, communication and so on. They’ll also find it boosts their memory. As with any learned behavior, the more they successfully apply a soft skill, the stronger the reinforcement. They learn to prioritize this ability in their mind for faster recall later. And, since it’s all done online, they’ll become more comfortable with adapting to changing technologies and platforms.

Lastly, as they complete skill challenges online, they’re improving muscle coordination and basic computer skills. With every click and typed response, they are linking the correct answer with a muscle command. These actions not only improve overall computer use, but they boost memory too. Forming valuable connections on a visual and tactile level. According to Mental Floss, “So-called “brain games” involving problem-solving, memory, and puzzle components have been shown to have a positive benefit on older players. In one study, just 10 hours of play led to increased cognitive functioning in participants 50 and older—improvement that lasted for several years.” So, they could improve the long-term retention of an ageing workforce as well.

13. Promoting quality assurance 

Quality assurance is more than a department. It’s a way of conducting business. It looks for inefficiency in front and backend processes and cuts it out. The end goal is that each customer has the best possible experience, every time. It goes beyond product quality or quality control to every section of the business:

  • Management – Provide your senior team with the data to make key decisions quickly and accurately. A good Quality Management System (QMS) will allow for detailed real-time reporting. Setting gamified targets will help them to identify star performers and those in need of improvement.
  • Customer Service – Provide regular gamified training to keep all service departments operating as one. Ensure they understand the standards that are expected of them and can monitor their own performance.
  • Recruitment & Training – Invest in your teams with high-adoption gamified training programs around product, customer and culture. Don’t stop after the first week, maintain the initial outlay through regular refresher modules.
  • Compliance – Nothing is more detrimental to QA than non-compliance. Bin the dusty binders of legal jargon and encourage your entire team to live compliance through gamified training courses.
  • Marketing & Branding – Encourage the brand to move beyond font and colors into a full articulation of the vision and values the company holds. Entrench in the whole team the brand vision and mission they can better build emotional links with your customers.
  • Products & Services – Whatever your goods or services, strive for the best possible value for money position in the customer’s mind. Ensure all team members understand the features and benefits of your product intimately. Instill a passion and enthusiasm for your unique selling proposition.
  • Product Testing – Rigorously evaluate, improve and reevaluate your product so it continually meets the needs of your customers. Look at it for all viable use cases to ensure it’s stable when it reaches the customer’s hands.

According to the Houston Chronicle, “If you fail to meet customers’ expectation, they will quickly look for alternatives.

Quality is critical to satisfying your customers and retaining their loyalty so they continue to buy from you in the future. Quality products make an important contribution to long-term revenue and profitability. They also enable you to charge and maintain higher prices. Quality is a key differentiator in a crowded market. It’s the reason that Apple can price its iPhone higher than any other mobile phone in the industry – because the company has established a long history of delivering superior products.”

14. On-site hardware operation games 

Gamification isn’t all light and airy. It can do more than teach only soft skills. Some of the most serious jobs in the world use games and simulators to allow teams to practice risky equipment handling. Don’t believe it? Air Charter Service states, “All pilots, from Air Force to commercial to private jet pilots, have been trained in flight simulators for close to a century. But virtual reality is about to change the way students are taught at pilot training schools, in what is set to be more than just a breakthrough for technology. A VR pilot training system has the potential to significantly lower flight training costs while decreasing Air Force budgets. They can even be used to train mechanics.”

Beyond simulating an operating environment, games can help employees learn to troubleshoot and develop critical thinking skills. They can tackle numerous gamify problems like fires, electrical faults and workplace hazards in a safe environment. By logging in remotely, they can train in real-life scenarios from the comfort of home.

Plus, immersion in the actual environment is more powerful than classroom learning. VR applications allow the user to experience the sights, sounds and sensations of everything from a normal operation to a crisis scenario. They can safely experiment with their responses, make mistakes and learn without any costly equipment damage or injury risk.

How to implement corporate gamification 

01. Integrating gamification into training programs

Don’t reinvent the wheel. Instead, look to supplement your existing training with games. Look at story driven case studies, quizzes and behavioral scenarios that you could use to enhance your existing offering. The progression and real-time feedback will readily boost user retention.

02. Using rewards as a way to engage

Badges, perk points and recognition are all great ways to incentives your team with games while training or completing daily tasks.

Think about what your employees would like and provide them an opportunity to earn those rewards.

03. Adding storytelling to motivate

People learn from people. Our stories engage. So, think of ways to add storytelling into your games dynamically. Allow your team to take on a role, make decisions, analyze the result and solve corporate problems. You’ll gain a lot of insight into the weaknesses and strengths of your team too.

04. Increasing product knowledge with leaderboards and competition

With rapid change, some team members can get left behind. Keep as many up to date as you can by offering games designed to train product knowledge. Foster some competition using leaderboards and assign rewards to top performers.

05. Building a solid learning path

As new information needs to be disseminated, create quest paths. By minifying each subtopic, your team will come on a journey of discovery. Encourage their participation with rewards and recognition. Allow top performers to mentor fledglings as they progress on the learning path.

Conclusion 

Corporate gamification links tangible goals to tangible rewards. It drives positive performance, learning and engagement through healthy competition. Even as the pace of business increases, a culture of gamified learning can keep ahead of the pack. Businesses can achieve their indirect and direct objections by aligning game elements to their business goals. Because of their high success rate, they improve the overall efficiency of every training program, candidate selection process, daily task and department in the business.

And best of all, it’s all recorded in real-time. This provides management teams with unparalleled performance and development insights. And it doesn’t mean abandoning existing programs that work. Game elements can tie into any current program and enhance their impact quickly and seamlessly. They can teach soft, transitory skills. Plus, they can also teach complex, hard skills too.

In order for a modern business to maintain a high growth rate, corporate gamification is becoming a near-necessity.

If you have a question about this or anything else; let’s chat.

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