Playing workplace games can help employees build camaraderie among themselves, deepen their skill set and be recognized for their accomplishments. Engaging and motivating employees requires ongoing effort from organizations. An engaged workforce makes the workday fly by faster; they provide excellent client care, and the business benefits from this enthusiastic atmosphere. Any organization should make every effort to increase motivation and engagement - finding tools that work will appreciate is part of this challenge.
Gamification could be the solution. This new engagement trend utilizes digital or traditional workplace contests--digital or physical--to reward employees as they work. Employees can celebrate successes, receive awards, upgrade status levels and earn badges through gamification. Gamification can push coworkers, surpass personal records or assist employees in developing new skill sets; it's only restrictions lie with you and your staff's imagination and creativity; there are endless possibilities.
Are You Wondering If Gamification Works?
Gamification relies on positive reinforcement to boost employee motivation, so its success lies in that aspect alone. Even when you cannot congratulate every employee for a job well done personally or a milestone met, gamification can provide much-needed motivational boosts.
Gamification can also divide difficult jobs into manageable chunks that make projects more accessible, recognize minor achievements and honor little milestones more readily; when there's an incentive for completing any task, gamification makes even the dullest lessons more engaging for employees.
Gamification also promotes wellness. While income may be the driving force for your work, employees still want recognition and gratitude in between paychecks for any accomplishments, regardless of size or scope, at their own pace. Gamification fills that void.
Ways To Recognize And Reward
Make employees happy by offering games that reward players immediately, leading to more fantastic and better prizes, and rewarding their hard work with instantaneous gratification - giving employees something tangible they can work towards will keep them working harder at "playing" the game. There are various programs you can select or create your version; here are a few things to keep in mind when making such rewards programs:
Milestone Rewards
- Celebrate employee anniversaries
- Assist employees with picking up and replicating new routines or behaviors.
- Give them praise for completing current tasks.
To be eligible for rewards, workers (or management) must check in when tasks have been completed and mark when badges or points have been earned - these prizes may be used immediately or saved up as long-term incentives such as corporate swag. Initial motivations are small tokens, while more oversized items require additional unlocking points.
Leaderboards
Leaderboards are widely used by businesses to measure sales. But their applications go far beyond this category: Imagine rewarding employees for prioritizing safety above and beyond the "xx days without an accident" signs. Incentivise staff by rewarding individual and collective efforts, prioritizing safety first with rewards like pizza lunch for all. For instance, you could monitor how many clients were attended to and how many burgers were flipped. Leaderboards provide businesses with a way of tracking sales and monitoring how many clients listened to and flipped. Monitor for numbers like:
- Clientele attended
- flipped
- Items were exchanged for those presently stored.
Measurable tasks become competitive challenges among colleagues or employees striving to break personal records for performance.
Also Read: Maximize Business Success: Master Employee Management with Arion
Benefits Of Gamification
Significant advantages Of Gamification when appropriately implemented in your workplace environment. Here's what gamification could mean:
Acquiring Younger Staff
Gamification can be attractive in today's job market, where Gen Z and Millennials are making up the bulk. Their digital environment was filled with games and rewards; by employing gamification techniques, you can better connect with these younger generations while increasing employer appeal for your business.
Workers Are More Likely To Remain
Gamification can help employees remain employed longer by creating a stimulating workplace that's lively, interactive and participatory - creating happier workers who are more likely to stick around. Simply put, contented workers tend to stay around.
Makes Education Exciting And Entertaining
Conventional corporate training courses can often be dull and monotonous. Gamification provides a way out by adding fun to the educational process through game components that enhance learning experiences through lessons, challenges, and point systems. Employees will more likely engage with content because it engages them rather than out of duty or obligation alone.
Increased Productivity
Engaged employees produce more. Gamification turns daily tasks into enjoyable challenges that make completion more likely, leading to higher production overall. People become more productive when their jobs feel rewarding to complete.
Reducing Stress
Gamification can reduce stress at work by making tasks feel more like games rather than labor. One way to lessen deadline pressure and add fun to work life is to implement point-based systems or team tournaments.
7 Examples Of Gamification In The Workplace
Are You Excited about Gamification Potential But Unsure How it Will Work in Practice? Here, we explore some influential gamification strategies companies use to make daily work life more engaging and less monotonous.
Points, Leaderboards, And Badges (PBL)
At the core of gamification lies PBL trinity: workers receive points for accomplishing specific goals, such as signing sales contracts or delivering projects on schedule, which they display via badges to create an incentive and sense of achievement and acknowledgement for employees. Leaderboards encourage staff members to compete against one another and strive towards reaching the top and maintaining high-performance levels; it's an easy yet successful strategy when coupled with tangible benefits.
Challenges And Missions
Think of Challenges and Missions as Performance Based Learning taken one step further: employees don't just receive points; they also have missions or challenges they need to complete. The key here is making it enjoyable and fulfilling - whether solving a tough team puzzle together, reaching sales targets or reaching other personal milestones - turning what would otherwise have been an uninspiring to-do list into an engaging story and feeling proud when your mission has been accomplished.
Gamified Employee Of The Month
Gamification takes "Employee-of-the-Month" awards one step further. Create a point system that recognizes and incentivizes actions beyond project completion and sales performance - not only project completion and sales performance. This highly sought-after title has become increasingly sought after through various achievements like cooperation, punctuality and creative problem-solving abilities.
Time-Tracking Games
Some businesses have introduced time-tracking games in which staff compete against one another to accurately predict how long tasks will take - an enjoyable and productive way to increase productivity and project management skills.
Virtual Scavenger Hunts
An engaging way for teams working remotely to build team cohesion and provide essential information quickly is with virtual scavenger hunts that include clues about team members, company history, or industry expertise. A virtual scavenger hunt provides crucial knowledge in an entertaining format while encouraging team cooperation.
Health & Wellness Initiatives
Wellbeing at work can be improved through gamified health challenges. Gamifying wellness initiatives, such as creating an eating or step count competition, can improve employee health while decreasing medical expenses.
Skill-Building Quizzes
Employees at some firms offer skill-building tests for employees to obtain digital badges or certificates in various professional skills such as leadership or software knowledge. These badges may even appear on LinkedIn or internal accounts to give more authority and drive to their careers.
Conclusion
Gamification can be an invaluable way to increase productivity and employee engagement in your workplace, using neuroscience-backed solutions and practical benefits. However, remember to begin modestly: no need to start with complex systems immediately; start small, such as fast feedback loops or leaderboards and improve them over time with input from team members as you find the optimal combination of game elements that keep players engaged and motivated.
