Is your business using employee engagement to increase ROI?
If not, it may be time to join the organizations that are already seeing an improvement to their bottom line. There are many strategies that can be implemented to improve engagement in the workplace such as project management software — and a good deal of them now involve gamification. This concept is still relatively new, so you may be wondering how employee gamification works and what benefits to expect.
Let’s start by defining the concept of gamification and then we will explore the advantages and strategies around it.
What is Gamification?
Many people confuse the term “gamification” with the act of playing a game.
This is not accurate.
Although gamification employs gaming concepts, it is a tool to that is used to drive engagement and enhance performance. The reason employee gamification works so well is because it is derived from learned behaviors and skills developed through childhood games.
The same underlying motivations, performance analysis and rewards make up the basis of today’s sophisticated gamification applications. For example, employees might be set up to win prizes for accomplishing specific goals or even compete with one another to secure the reward in question.
These methods have been found to be incredibly effective, which may be responsible for the 2.8 billion gamification market. Gamification in the workplace essentially revolves around giving employees a better job experience and increasing retention and productivity.
Types of Employee Gamification
There are numerous ways to implement gamification in the workplace, and the ideal option will vary according to your specific business goals. For the sake of simplicity, we’ve organized the gamification types into three different categories:
- Progress Measurement
The ability to view your progress as you complete tasks and activities can be highly motivating. In gamification, progress may be measured through points, badges or even rewards.
- Social Motivation
Encouraging team collaboration and competition is another element of workplace gamification. This can be an exceptionally powerful way to increase workplace communication, productivity and even retention.
- Customized Gamification Apps
In some cases, businesses choose to implement entire processes that are built on gamification concepts. This type of immersive employee gamification is not the most common, but it can produce astounding results in the right setting.
The Benefits of Gamification
Employee gamification is currently being used in a variety of ways and produces a number of different benefits. A few of them include:
- Increasing employee engagement
- Improving productivity and retention
- Boosting morale
- Promoting team collaboration
- Turning employees into brand ambassadors
- Improving the learning process with enhanced training programs
- Promoting desirable employee behavior
Gamification software is becoming more and more ingrained in the workplace and also becoming integrated into existing business tools. And organizations that use employee gamification are reaping the benefits of a highly engaged and productive workforce.
