Strategic Gamification: How to Drive Business Results Through Engaging Workplace Practices

The workplace experience you create for your team is vital to your company’s success. If you’re always serious, strict, or overbearing – this energy will impact the employee experience and lead to high turnover rates and low satisfaction. 

However, if you prioritize creating an engaging and rewarding experience, it will start to show in the work they produce. Individuals that are part of a positive workplace culture aren’t afraid to share new ideas and love collaborating with their coworkers.

The problem is – many leaders and sales managers in the workplace don’t want to take the time to focus on creating engaging workplace practices that benefit the team and the company they work for. They don’t have the time, resources, or creative mindset to develop an innovative strategy that meets the needs of their team and bottom line.

Whether you don’t have the time to take on new tasks or aren’t sure how to restructure the workplace experience to be more engaging – the strategy you need is gamification.

Gamification invites your leadership to restructure the workweek and find innovative ways to improve productivity and efficiency. When done correctly, this strategy keeps your team engaged and entertained with their workweek tasks, all while helping your business drive results. 

We’re here to walk you through how to successfully use a gamification strategy to improve employee satisfaction and boost employee morale. 

Let’s dive in.

What is a Gamification Strategy?

Gamification is the process of using game elements and mechanics in a non-game setting. It’s a powerful tool that helps your team restructure their understanding of mundane tasks. 

Gamification uses similar strategies as video games. Every time your team completes a task or reaches a milestone, they’ll get an incentive, badge, or verbal recognition. These incentives help fuel their motivation, giving them the confidence they need to continue to push themselves in the workplace. 

Best Practices For Building an Effective Gamification Strategy

It may surprise you that over 98% of active job seekers look for job opportunities that use gamification in the workplace. That’s because gamification is much more than games, competitions, and game elements. It’s also about improving the workplace experience and helping your team fulfill their professional long-term goals with your company. 

While game elements are essential to your gamification strategy, they are just one part of the bigger picture. When building an engaging gamification plan, there are a few workplace best practices you’ll want to keep in mind to ensure that your strategy is successful. 

Here are a few best practices to remember when using gamification techniques. 

Set a Reasonable Time Frame 

A time frame adds a layer of urgency and keeps your team on task. If you don’t have a set time frame tied to the games and competitions you host, your team’s motivation will slowly fade the longer the game is in play. 

Let’s say you host a sales competition for the month of October. A month is just long enough to see progress and short enough to keep your team engaged with the activities you have planned. At the beginning of the month, go over the rules and expectations – and let the games begin. 

While you can also include year-long and quarterly contests into the mix, these experiences won’t have the same effect. They are more likely to forget about it throughout the year, which means your gamification strategy might not have the same impact on your team. Sticking with shorter time frames also allows you to plan more competitions and games, keeping your team engaged throughout the year.

Trial and Error 

There isn’t one size fits all approach to gamification. Every team is different and requires a different approach to the workplace experience. When working on your strategy, you may want to test a few game elements to see what works best for your team. 

Here are a few to consider:

• Leaderboards 
• Progress Bars 
• Badges 
• Mini-games and competitions 

Once you’ve tested the waters with a few game elements, you can understand what does and doesn’t work for your team and start implementing engaging work practices. 

Many businesses find the most success using a mix of a few different game elements. For example, maybe you use a leaderboard to track your team’s monthly success while handing out badges when someone reaches a milestone or accomplishes something.

If you aren’t sure which game elements resonate with your audience the most, consider sending out an employee survey to understand the effectiveness of your initiatives. 

Make it Less About The Rewards 

Rewards are an invaluable tool to motivate your sales team to go above and beyond. However, if everything is always about the rewards, your team will lose focus on the true purpose of your gamification strategy. 

Instead, make sure the focus is on your team and their contributions. Celebrate every win as a reward for progress, and continue to recognize your team for every task they complete, project they take on, and milestone they reach. Let the rewards motivate them to go the extra mile while their professional development guides them toward the best professional version of themselves. 

Celebrate Every Accomplishment 

Gamification helps keep your sales reps engaged with their coworkers and workweek tasks. While meeting your sales goals is a top priority for your bottom line, it’s not the only priority you need to focus on. Instead of celebrating who brought in the most deals that week or has the highest revenue – consider other types of achievements you can celebrate. 

Here are some examples of accomplishments you may consider for sales professionals:

• Who brings in the most renewals 
• Sends the most prospecting emails
• Makes the most phone calls
• Books the most demos
• Brings in new leads to the sales funnel
• Brings in the newest business 

Don’t Keep All of the Attention on the Top Performers 

The truth is: You’re always going to have those few top performers. The ones always bring in new business and maintain the best relationships with current clients. While these top performers may motivate your team members, they can also discourage them. 

If your team feels like they’ll always lose to the top performers during the competitions and games you plan, they may never feel motivated to try harder. When you acknowledge every team member for their contributions, you can improve the workplace experience for everyone.

Get Creative 

One of the best parts about implementing a gamification strategy is that you can be as creative as you want with the game elements, competitions, and mini-games you plan for your team. There is no right or wrong way of using gamification – so you can have as much fun as you want during the workweek. 

Sales Coaching 

Studies suggest that 30% of employees feel game-based learning is significantly more engaging than traditional methods. However, you can’t just set up a few games or hand out badges and call it a day. To truly see success with gamification, you’ll need to check in with your team and continue to coach them through opportunities, challenges, and the sales process.

Sales coaching and gamification work hand in hand. With sales gamification software, you’ll gain access to your team’s individual insights and data. You can use this data to take a personalized approach to the workplace experience, setting your team up for success for the rest of the month, quarter, or year.

Track and Analyze Your Team’s Performance 

Gamification provides valuable insight into your team’s success. As a leader in the workplace, you can use your team’s data to understand their strengths and weaknesses. This will allow you to improve your approach to sales coaching and give you the data-driven insights you need to push your team toward success. 

We recommend keeping a pulse on your team’s data and insights throughout the year. Check in with each team member regularly to ensure they have the necessary resources and support. You can also use this time to understand what works and doesn’t work with your gamification strategy and find new ways to improve. 

Taking Your Gamification Strategy to the Next Level

While it may seem like a simple enough task to start incorporating game elements into the workplace experience – it’s more work than you might think. Coming to the table with innovative ways to boost team morale on a daily basis can be a challenge. 

With innovative sales gamification software like Spinify, you can plan, track, and engage with your team throughout the week. Our sales gamification software can boost your team’s performance and give you that change of pace you’re looking for without disrupting your team’s productivity. 

Book a free demo today to learn more.