Gamification at Work

Gamification is classically characterized by gaming elements, such as leaderboards, badges and points, however, despite contrary belief, it is not about ‘making’ games. Essentially, it is about applying these gaming elements in ‘non-gaming’ circumstances, like making gamification work for training.

One thing we can’t promise is that you’ll find gamification in microlearning as entertaining as crushing candy, slicing raining watermelons with a samurai sword, or jumping over aliens in UFOs. But, what real games and gamification do have in common, however, is their ability to make users feel they are competing to achieve a specific objective or goal through an engaging learning experience.

Improving engagement, recall, and application are essential in the successful functioning of your company, which is often achieved through the implementation of gamification. Here are three ways to make gamification work dynamically in your company for successful employee training.

1. Understanding the role of gamification in your purpose

‘Gamifying’ employee learning experiences is heavily influenced by your employees’ willingness to adopt a gaming approach to their ongoing corporate training. In order to make gamification work for training in the workplace, it is important to make the benefits clear, as well as developing it in a way that will boost employee engagement and satisfaction. It is crucial to remain conscious of how gamification is received by your employees, as the main point of the strategy is to enhance learning, rather than detracting from it.

2. Make sure your plan is well thought out and executed effectively

Taking into account the needs and preferences of employees, it is useful to set out a detailed plan of gamification method and objectives, to determine the impact you would like in return. It is important to think about ‘why’ you want to incorporate gaming elements, allowing you to carefully choose the elements which will be best received and most useful to your particular employees and their own goals.

3. Take time to reflect on feedback

Feedback from your employees on the effectiveness of gamification for work training is important to gain insight into what employees are putting into their learning and what they are getting out in return. The easiest way to hear feedback from employees is by directly asking them questions, such as the extent to which it is engaging, memorable aspects, and sections that were the most engaging and enjoyable. From this, you are able to infer what there needs to be more of and what is working well.

For more large-scale attempts at making gamification work for training in your workplace more sophisticated or scalable methods of feedback can be used. Using analytical feedback that shows staff training engagement and completion statistics is one very useful method.  Tracking this over time can tell you what is and what isn’t working to keep staff engaged. Large-scale staff surveys are another useful technique to keep your finger on the pulse of what is going on with your staff.  Constant feedback is required to understand if your training is relevant and teaching staff what they need to know when they need to know it.

Want to learn more about gamification for successful employee training?

If all of the above resonates and you’ve got to train a large, disparate group or workforce in the latest practices and policies of your organization, get in touch at enquiries@edapp.com. You can also try SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s Mobile LMS and authoring tool for free by signing up here.

Sources
https://elearningindustry.com/gamification-in-the-workplace-reshaping-corporate-training-5-killer-examples
https://elearningindustry.com/change-corporate-training-with-gamification-5-tips

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