Game for new ideas?

Gamification appeals to employees' sense of competition and desire for recognition

Are your employees getting distracted easily, or slipping on job targets? Are they getting in to and leaving work bang on the dot? Some employees will always be in this mode, irrespective of the nature of work they are doing, but if the tribe of employees with slumped, negative body language is increasing, you better do something to stop the brighter among them hitting the exit door.
 

Of course, there is no easy solution. Some of the world’s top companies are spending millions of dollars to improve engagement, retention, and performance — and yet over half their employees are still imagining greener pastures and looking at their 9-to-5 paycheck instead of a long-term career. Some companies, however, have gone beyond the obvious and put in place new systems to bump up the motivation quotient. One of these tools that is gaining popularity is “gamification”. Though not a new concept, many companies have brought it up to speed to cater to the new generation workforce who say they do not have the opportunity to show their best work or have a vehicle to contribute their ideas and suggestions. Using gamification to address this usually improves engagement levels.

Take Google, for instance. The technology giant has incorporated a travel expense game that encourages people to keep track of their expenses related to business trips. The motivating factor is that every penny that they save from spending is paid back to them as an addition to their salaries. Google has also been organising a Google Code Jam software-writing competition as a way to find fresh talent. Developers and engineers who enter the contest are competing in a game to win monetary prizes up to $50,000. 

HR experts say there is nothing like a little competitive element to increase learning engagement and have employees try to outdo each other. Gamification, in essence, is based on the idea that human beings like games — not only just as a child, but well beyond adulthood. According to Forbes, 80 per cent of smartphone users play mobile games on their device, and nearly 50 per cent play games every day. Additionally, mobile game apps are used equally by both men and women. While more teens play mobile games than adults, 62 per cent of adults do use these apps.

Cisco, for example, teaches social media skills to its employees and contractors through a multi-level training programme that lets learners advance through the ranks to obtain the ultimate title of a social media “Master”, through 46 courses. This was a wide success because of the in-built competitive element. 

Gamification, in fact, is a simple strategy of applying game-oriented thinking to various non-game applications. It makes such non-game applications more engaging and fun for employees. Smart marketers use it to increase consumer engagement and influence consumer behaviour, the broad idea being that it helps companies to engage people with the brand. For a company that adopts a game-like attitude, it showcases that your brand and company culture believes in innovation and creativity.

Domino’s did that with great effect. Its Pizza Mogul game (users create and name their own ideas for pizzas and toppings, and then for every item sold, they get certain monetary rewards) built enough brand awareness to show to potential job candidates that the company is game for new ideas in the workplace.

Undoubtedly, employee engagement is one of the holy grails of human resource function, which is why HR leaders have been exploring the ways gamification can transform talent management and company culture by applying point scoring, competition with others and rules of play among them to their employee management strategies. It appeals to an individual’s sense of competition and desire for recognition. Uber drivers, for example, are able to earn badges for “excellent service” and “great conversation” etc. Other firms use it to engage employees in particular initiatives. 

It’s true that gamification gets people excited like no other strategy does, probably because it holds the promise of fun and engagement, and extraordinary results. But it has to be thought through and designed well. Otherwise, it can have the Cobra Effect. Here’s why: Concerned about the rise in venomous cobra snakes in Delhi, the then British government offered a bounty for every dead cobra. The strategy proved successful initially, resulting in a large number of snakes being killed. However, people soon began gaming the system, breeding cobras for the extra income. 
 

Organisations thus have to put in place systems so that unintended, and even undesirable behaviours do not become the side effects of a gamification initiative.