Gamification, or employee engagement

By Sherif Attar

In a world of ever-changing ambiguity and uncertainty, executives have to face two challenges: excellent performance and people development. Where many managers think those endeavours are “competing”, this author believes they are “completing”. GET DOWN TO BUSINESS argues.

“When I started using gamification in training, I was receiving weird suspicious looks. Eventually, participants were asking for more of it and even asking for the next session!”

One of the most important elements in training design is engagement. Investing in training purpose is developing learners’ skills, and growing the business. Gamification of learning is a strategy that has been building in recent years. With more and more workplace training moving online, and e-learning becoming an increasingly popular tool for the modern business, gamified training has grown into a prominent strategy for employee engagement.

What is gamification?

The process of using game-like features or structures for things that are not games. Gamification of training could involve adding features such as points systems, simulations, or puzzles to an otherwise traditional training course.

Gamification key objective is to grab (and maintain) the attention of your learners and motivate them to engage with the content.

How is gamification used?

It’s important to keep in mind that gamified e-learning is taking the elements that make games engaging and motivating and utilising them for learning and development purposes. If you’re creating your own gamified learning or searching for some to purchase and add to your training programme, some key things to include are:

• Competitions

• Quizzes

• Visuals

• Rewards

• Stories/Simulations

The opportunities for gamification are endless. Stories or simulations are a great opportunity to highlight real-world examples of the content, which allow employees to make real decisions and understand the outcomes. Puzzles can be great to test understanding of compliance training. Strategy games can be a great resource for teaching strategies and practices.

How does gamification achieve engagement?

* End goal. Games tend to have an end goal, something that needs to be achieved. This could be the completion of a puzzle or reaching the end of a simulation successfully. Unlike a lot of training materials, gamified processes help the learners to visualise an end-point, which can orient their focus.

* Challenges. Achieving the end goal requires commitment and the overcoming of obstacles, thus, gamified processes encourage learners to apply their knowledge, and use what they have learned to overcome challenges.

* Rewards.When you gamify a training process, you are putting the learner in the driver’s seat, they are in control of their learning. This offers a sense of achievement for successfully completing the task. Many gamified processes offer scores, which engage learners to prioritise their success.

How else can it help?

Engaging content helps employees feel connected to the company culture, which boosts productivity. Employees who feel engaged are more likely to want to perform well, which helps them grow. Workplace culture is very important to the professionals of today, and interesting and engaging training processes connect employees to their businesses, in turn promoting the culture.

Competitive gamification can help employees connect with one another. Not all gamified resources offer leader boards or shared results with other employees, but fun and engaging processes are more likely to spark conversations. A connected workplace is healthier and more productive.

Worth it?

Ultimately, gamification motivates employees to take on active roles in their jobs. They are pushed to engage with the learning content and rewarded for doing so, which boosts involvement and helps them retain the information. Employees who are offered engaging resources for development and upskilling are happier and more productive. Gamification offers an additional method to train your employees in a way that is beneficial to everybody, and thus time and money well spent. So, gamification might not be the only way to gain employee engagement, but it’s certainly another string to the bow of great training.