Using gamification to boost employee engagement

In recent years, gamification has become a motivational motto for the training of various kinds. The pandemic has helped this strategy gain wider acceptance as a way to incentivize users and make acquiring new knowledge fun. It is now commonplace and is used in many distance learning eLearning initiatives. It garnered mostly positive feedback from people all across the world.

But what happens if you change the target audience and introduce gamification in the workplace?  

We will take you on a journey through gamification for employee engagement and show you the tasks and initiatives where gamification can be useful.

Example One: Improve Employee Onboarding

The truth is that gamification is one of the most effective and friendly ways for newcomers to find their way around your company. In today's challenging era of work-from-home, pandemic uncertainty, and short attention spans, a well-structured and engaging virtual onboarding speeds up the process and makes it easier to approach. 

Let’s be honest. During their first week, new staff members have to acquire a huge amount of information in one sitting. With gamification of this procedure, not only is employee engagement guaranteed, but it is more probable users will actually remember the new material and feel supported. 

How to do it?

Activity Lists

Create activity lists to guide the new staff through their onboarding training path. Once your new hire has completed each of the game-based tasks, they will need to provide proof of their experience - a photo or an uploaded file. The more interactive the process, the better! In addition, certain activities can also be assigned to a specific employee's manager or buddy - with points or badges as rewards for completing them. It's all about motivating such a person to approach the new employee properly, organizing the whole initiative and making it easier through gamification in the workplace.

Gamify Social Networking

Try to gamify social networking for the new staff members, so that they can feel connected with the rest of the company. A good idea would be the use of winning badges to show appreciation for users who make the effort and communicate with their colleagues. In this way, they get the excuse to reach out to other team members without shame. That being said, you are laying the groundwork for employee engagement early in their life cycle within your company.

Example Two: Employee Training 

Like it or not, but dynamic, interactive activities are the future of upskilling employees. Everyone is tired of boring, not stimulating content, especially during the era of remote working. Workplace gamification for employee engagement is the answer. When used in online training, it breaks down the distance barrier and accelerates the learning process in an effective and motivating way. It is a great thing to include in the onboarding process.

Incorporating gamification principles in learning captures curiosity, productivity and storytelling in one go. It can help your staff members become more engaged in the new material, upgrade their skills and not forget it in the long run. At the same time, they can receive regular real-time feedback to be able to grow.

How to do it to build employee engagement?

Apply Leaderboards

With the appliance of leaderboards, colleagues can compete in a healthy way to score points and rank highest among their peers. They may contribute to the learning in an interesting and stimulating way. By simply looking at the leaderboards or rankings, the users can feel the urge to compete and become a better version of themselves. If backed up with proper guidance, this tool can produce extraordinary – but tangible – results such as a rise in employee productivity and individual initiative. Leaderboards can stimulate friendly rivalry and allow the most engaged employees to feel celebrated. Introducing scoreboards is rather inexpensive when compared to other gamification tactics, but must be implemented carefully, to let more than one person reach the top. If only one employee could be at the top of the scoreboard every time, unhealthy rivalry may develop. Create additional categories and divide the leaderboard into multiple sections so that more people can be recognised.

Use Motivational Funnels

Use unique motivational funnels to keep the learner eager to stay at the gamified training platform and ready to keep coming back. A great way to boost employee engagement is by sending out automatic but personalised notifications that respond to the user's behaviour in the interactive challenges. Are they doing good? Fine then, make sure to appreciate it and create incentives for the training tasks and games. Have they missed an activity? No problem, send a message that will make them feel understood and motivated to get back on track. In general, more personal and detailed messages can make an employee feel they are an important part of the company, and, in turn, raise employee morale.

Example Three: KPI Goals 

Although it does seem obvious, gamification is also a fantastic way to communicate company goals like KPIs to team members and make them feel more involved with the company. In this way, daily responsibilities may attain a more personal meaning to them. That will increase employee engagement and drive them to be consistent in their duties, despite the repetitive everyday routine in the workplace. And, of course, the higher the employee performance, the higher the customer satisfaction, and not only for sales representatives.

When using gamification, it is possible to arrange, measure and present the important metrics of every employee in the form of friendly competition, using productivity performance scores and KPIs. It can definitely boost engagement and drastically improve employee performance.

How to do it?    

Reward System

Consider the type of prizes you can provide for completing a task or achieving KPI criteria. Public recognition often goes a long way to boost employee engagement. Sometimes, the prospect of earning a challenging award or token of appreciation can be precisely an extra push that a person needs to meet a KPI or submit a task on time. These reward systems can take the form of online medals or additional functionalities at the training programme or real live vouchers or perks. Cash incentives as a part of the gamification program are undoubtedly appealing as well. The rewards employees can receive after finishing tasks or meeting KPI goals on time serve the purpose of a motivator, reminding individuals that their hard work is being acknowledged and will be appreciated - this, in turn, can also raise the self-esteem of the company's employees. Physical rewards, money, virtual badges - all of them can effectively boost morale and improve the retention of workers in your company.

Track progress to motivate employees

Last, but not least! Try fun game mechanics to see how employees are performing in different areas and track employee engagement in your workplace. This can be done using trivia questions or tests designed to measure traits or performance that may not be communicated externally within the team. Besides, a seemingly static daily task can become more engaging for a user thanks to an interactive quiz at the end – the more motivating and fulfilling activity is, the more attentive the worker becomes in terms of meeting specific KPIs. Introduce gamification to increase employee motivation levels, and you will see the profits not long after. The team will likely be much more eager to work even on complex tasks, thanks to the gamification efforts.

According to eLearning Industry Survey, 89%of respondents say they are more motivated to finish a job when a task is gamified.

Towards Gamification for Employee Engagement 

Make sure you listen to the unique needs and motivational patterns of your employees so you can develop the right type of incentive system in your workplace. Using gamification in your employees' daily tasks or in onboarding can boost their productivity, skills and job satisfaction! Such innovative ideas are great to keep the employees actively engaged, and the social aspect of it does not feel fake or forced. Gamification as an employee engagement strategy has grown in popularity in recent years, with even big business leaders like Deloitte or Google implementing it for their employees.

Are you seeking a gamified platform that will allow you to achieve your company goals and increase employee engagement?

With our assistance, our client was able to remotely motivate their employees through a high-quality professional development course. Learn more about how we can help your company engage the workforce and achieve better results!