Achieving Work-Life Balance through Gamification

The rise of hybrid and remote workforces has helped employees achieve the ultimate work-life balance. Your team no longer needs to commute to work, move to the city, or spend hours of the day stuck in traffic. Instead, they can start their workday from the comfort of their home office and work just as efficiently as any in-office team. 

However, remote and hybrid workforces don’t exactly work for every business. Some businesses still need that in-office connection to ensure team members reach their goals, close deals, and work collaboratively with their coworkers.

Whether you have an in-office or a hybrid team – implementing gamification into the workplace is an invaluable way to help your team achieve the work-life balance they crave. With the right game elements and strategies, your team will no longer look at work as work. They’ll start their day motivated, excited to take on new tasks and have a fresh perspective on the workplace dynamic. 

We’re here to walk you through how you can use gamification to keep your remote, hybrid, or in-office teams productive throughout 9-5 and help them achieve the work-life balance they need from home and in the office. 

Here’s how to use gamification to create a happy team in the real world:

Why Gamification?

Gamification encourages business leaders and employees to look at the workplace dynamic from a new perspective. Rather than giving your team a list of clients to call, tasks to do, and projects to complete – you’re actively engaging them in competitions and mini-games while rewarding them for their contributions. 

By looking at everyday tasks like a game, you can help your team reenvision their workweek and inspire friendly competition among coworkers. These game elements are invaluable tools to help keep your team motivated and push them toward success. You just need the right software and strategy.

How Can Gamification Help Achieve Work-Life Balance?

Once you implement a successful gamification strategy, tasks are no longer tasks, making it easier to combat burnout or the midday slump. 

What can they do that day to climb the leaderboard? How can they gain a new badge? How many calls do they need to make, or what deals do they need to close to increase their progress bar?

Their workplace mindset will completely change for the better. Which means “work” no longer feels like work. Instead, it feels like an interactive experience where they’re in charge of their success and potential – which will improve workplace morale and help you create a positive culture.

Tips for Using Gamification to Achieve a Work-Life Balance

While gamification will help improve the workplace experience – your work doesn’t stop there. As a leader, you’ll want to always put your team’s mental health first by looking for innovative ways to inspire a healthy work-life balance and improve job satisfaction.

Here’s how you can achieve this while using gamification:

Utilize Sales Coaching To Check In With Your Team

Gamification can only get you so far. Sales managers and leaders still need to engage with their teams to ensure they have the resources and tools to reach and exceed their goals. 

To do this, set up monthly or weekly sessions with each team member. Ask them what their challenges, accomplishments, and goals are. 

What did they struggle with last week? What help do they need from leadership? How can you improve the experience so they can be more productive and happy?

You can use a tool like Spinify to pull their data and progress to create data-driven discussions that align with their goals.

Inspire Friendly Competition To Combat Burnout

Who said coming to work couldn’t be fun? With mini-games, trivia sessions, and sales contests – you can combat workplace burnout and inspire them to go above and beyond while working. 

When your team clocks in to start, their mindset will change. The competitions you set will amplify the employee experience and show employees that work can actually be fun. 

Your team will look for creative ways to rise to the ranks and outperform their coworkers. This is a great way to increase productivity and help your team relax and unwind while they work. They’ll never feel overwhelmed by the pressures of completing tasks on time or not meeting their goals. This is also a great way to keep hybrid and remote work interesting. 

Pro Tip: Use rewards and incentives to raise the stakes!

Recognize Your Team For Their Contributions

Employee recognition is a cornerstone of a happy, thriving workplace experience. If you don’t actively recognize your team for their contributions to the workplace, team morale may plummet, and you may see higher turnover rates. Studies suggest strong, well-thought-out recognition programs can reduce turnover rates by 31%.

To help you keep recognition top of mind, you can use an AI-driven tool like Spinify Sidekick. This tool instantly recognizes your team when they reach their goals or improve sales performance. This way, you can recognize your team in real-time – so your leadership can also get time back in their day to focus on other tasks. 

Inspire Self Care With Rewards and Incentives

Rewards and incentives are game elements you can use to reward your team for their hard work and inspire them to go the extra mile. If you want to help them achieve the ultimate work-life balance, you can give them incentives that promote self-care. 

Here are a few ideas:

• Gift certificate for a spa day
• Extra PTO day
• Concert tickets or sporting events tickets
• Gift certificate for a manicure and pedicure 
• Gift certificate for a massage
• Gym membership

Get creative! If you aren’t sure what your team likes or dislikes, you can send out a survey to get a feel for the types of rewards that would motivate them the best, so you can adjust your approach to meet their unique likes and interests. 

Set Boundaries and Rules To Ensure They Don’t Overwork Themselves 

Leaderboards, competitions, and progress bars can push your team to reach and exceed their goals. This means a few coworkers may try to stay after work to finish a few calls or book more demos. To ensure everyone is prioritizing their personal lives, you’ll want to set rules and boundaries. 

Here are a few examples of rules and boundaries you can set:

• Points don’t count towards your goal after 5 pm 
• You can only close deals or complete tasks between the hours of 9-5 pm
• Points and progress don’t count during lunchtime

Every workplace is different, and so will the timing and the structure of the games and competitions you implement. Setting rules will ensure everyone is always making time for themselves, not just their workweek tasks. 

Take a Personalized Approach to Help Set Realistic Goals 

Each team member is different, whether a top performer on the sales team or someone on your IT team. To ensure each member is engaged and productive during 9-5, it’s best to take a personalized approach to goal setting. 

The top performer’s goals won’t be the same as a new hire – so their goals shouldn’t look the same. The extra personalization will help combat burnout, reduce stress levels, and help your team take a more realistic approach to the workweek. 

Utilize Leaderboards to Help Your Team Visualize Success 

Leaderboards are fun, innovative game elements you can use in your gamification strategy. With this tool, your team can visualize their success and know where they stand compared to their coworkers. 

Every day they come into the office, they’ll know how close or far they are from being one of the top performers for the month. This will motivate them to make a few extra calls or close more tickets while improving their time management skills. This will ensure the workload won’t overwhelm your team. They’ll know how to approach their tasks to get the most from the workweek.

Try Progress Bars To Improve Time Management

Progress bars focus on each individual’s success. This game element helps your team visualize their data to restructure their workweek to reach their goals. With a progress bar, they can learn how to take each day task by task, slowly filling their progress bar until it hits 100%. This will help them improve their time management and learn how to prioritize tasks more efficiently. 

Take The Work-Life Balance to the Next-Level With Spinify

Motivating people doesn’t need to be a challenge. With gamification, you can boost employee morale, improve company culture, and keep morale high during work hours. 

Spinify is a sales gamification tool that you can use to enhance the workplace dynamic for the better. Looking to inspire some friendly competition in your marketing department? Want a fun, interactive way to help your sales reps reach their goals? Maybe you want to improve your accounting team’s productivity. 

No matter your goal, Spinify is the perfect sales gamification software to help you build a happy, productive team. Book your free, personalized demo to discover the best sales gamification tool around!