Gamification in business has gained a significant role in the last few years. It is used by company HR departments that are looking for a new way to attract, train, reward and retain employees. Gamified concepts have begun to appear in core HR processes, based on the essence of games in processes such as training and development, as well as improving sales, customer service and personal efficiency.
What is gamification?
Gamification is the use of game methods in non-game processes.
This basically means taking the key elements of games, such as action and competition, and applying it through game mechanics, such as points, specific database by industry badges, and leaderboards. Gamification is not just about games that are built for business purposes. It also includes implementing an existing business experience or process in a new form.
How can gamification achieve better business results?
Gamification is commonly used in various organizational processes to improve efficiency and achieve high results. However, not all processes occurring in a company are suitable for gamification implementation.
Let’s look at four aspects of a company’s work in which gamification can be used:
1. Engagement and motivation
Employee engagement in work processes is closely linked to key organizational results. Lack of participation is a serious disadvantage in business. Gamification provides internal motivation, the desire to achieve more. Employees can easily track their own progress at work, understand their strengths and weaknesses, and be directed to actions that will contribute to their success and the success of the company. Visible goals, achievements, and benchmarks create commitment and dedication to users and turn their experience into an how to increase social media engagement for b2b interesting, active activity. The recognition and status they receive motivates employees to improve their work.
2. Training
Gamification can be extremely productive for the purpose of training employees. Training in the classical sense is usually characterized by studying training materials, master classes, seminars, courses. Using gamification, it is possible to significantly increase the understanding of training information, mainly due to the fact that the information is divided into small sessions that must be completed. Since small pieces of training tasks are used and there is a reward system, employees perform more tasks compared to simply watching videos, presentations or reading a textbook.
3. Adaptation to changes
Businesses are constantly forced to adapt to Japan Data ever-evolving technologies, market changes, customer demands, etc.
They can’t do this if their employees aren’t motivated and willing to make changes. Gamification uses the same techniques that keep players interested and engaged in the game.
4. Achieving goals
Gamification focuses on actions that drive sales rather than results that appear on a leaderboard. Gamification is a great way to promote desired behaviors that lead to organizational goals. It works as a software component that connects employees and goals with organizational values. When designed and implemented correctly, gamification uses incentives for feedback, rewards, and achievements, and creates interactions that inspire employees to be better and better every day.
3 Mistakes You Can Make When Gamifying
- No personalization. Even though gamification is a current trend – and has many positive aspects – not all employees will want to participate. Not every employee is ready to fight for a digital star. Therefore, it is necessary to give employees a choice, for example, by introducing gamification into training, you can provide the same information in the form of training materials: manuals, presentations, videos, etc.
- Too many rewards. To motivate employees, you need to understand what behavior should be rewarded. Do not reward everything. The reward system can become too confusing for employees, which will lead to a lack of motivation at all.
- Failure to engage employees on an emotional level. The emotional part of a game can significantly change employee behavior. With competition comes motivation and the thrill of winning, so communicating to employees why the information they are learning is important can reinforce learning concepts on an emotional level.
Successful Cases of Gamification in Business
Gamification is used not only for internal processes in the company’s work, but also to attract consumers’ attention to the company’s services and products. Here are some examples of the most successful projects based on the principles of gamification.
“Classmates”
At the end of 2014, before the New Year, the social network Odnoklassniki launched a quest game on Instagram. During the game, the quest participant had to move around using tags, view videos and photos. In the first hours after the launch of the project, the number of subscribers to the official Odnoklassniki account on Instagram increased by 200 people.
LEGO
As part of preparing children for school, LEGO launched a mobile quest “Collect a hero for school” for playing in the “Detsky Mir” store of the “Voentorg” shopping center in Moscow. Using the application, a child searched for and scanned the items necessary for study according to the quest assignment in order to prepare the character for school. Children who completed the quest received a mini-set of LEGO lines. In the first days after the launch of the project, more than 200 children took part, about a hundred participants completed the quest and received sets from LEGO.
