When Should Gamification Be Used?

Keeping employees engaged is becoming more challenging for business owners and management staff. When you have a poor employee engagement and motivation rate, you may notice a lack of productivity. 

This can have costly effects on your business, so it’s essential to learn about ways to improve performance. Sure, monitoring employee performance is one way, but this won’t get rid of the boredom that’s often noted among staff. In this article, we’ll help you discover the benefits of game elements through gamification techniques.

What Is Gamification In The Workplace?

One of the first things that we should discuss is gamification itself. Games are nothing new. Even before digital games that we play on a computer or TV, games formed an essential part of family nights, casinos, and getting together with friends. We went from board games to digital games, and now virtual reality is shaping the industry’s future.

A 2022 statistics report shows that about 82.9% of Americans consider themselves gamers. The rate of gamers continues to rise worldwide, which means you have employees who enjoy coming home to a relaxing session of their favorite title.

We don’t play at work – when your employees show up for their shift, you expect them to be professional and not think of your business as a game, right? Recent research shows that using gamification in the workplace can improve employee engagement and productivity.

Gamification is a technique that introduces some gamified elements into your professional workplace.

There are different ways in which you can use gamification. Some businesses use gamification to enhance the learning experience when employees undergo a training program. Other companies may use gamification to ensure salespeople stay motivated through rewards they can earn.

It’s also possible to make your business more engaging superficially with gamification. You’ve probably seen loyalty programs that some companies offer in the past. This is a strategy that takes advantage of gamification elements. Every time you shop, you earn points. You can receive a reward when you have a certain number of points. It’s also a great way to cultivate loyalty among shoppers, as they start to prefer your store due to the points they can earn.

Signs You Should Implement Gamification

A report by Forbes showed that a majority of employees note that they feel incredibly bored in the workplace. Your staff needs to do the same things every day. Whether communicating with customers, following up on emails, developing marketing strategies, or working with a team underneath them – it’s not only stressful but becomes mundane over time.

It’s essential to take note when this boredom is costing your company. While you could get new staff to replace those with poor performance, the cycle will continue. Using gamification in the workplace can significantly and noticeably affect employee productivity, engagement, and performance.

Now, how do you know when it’s time to implement gamification in your business? Research reports show gamification has numerous advantages; the answer is “now.” There hasn’t been a better time to start thinking about ways to keep motivation levels up among your employees. With emerging evidence regarding the benefits of gamification, it’s time to start thinking about these engaging techniques.

One study found that among the top 2000 companies worldwide, about 70% use some gamification system. These gamification elements are used internally, and you can even turn to them to engage your target audience more effectively. These elements no longer only seem attractive to large corporations. Even as a small business owner, you can use game-like elements to enhance the performance of your business.

The Benefits Of Gamification Strategies

You now have a better view of gamification and why now is an excellent time to consider adding game elements to your business processes. With this said, you should also get a clear picture of the advantages of learning and implementing gamification strategies in your business.

In this section, we are going to outline the benefits that come with the right gamification strategies.

Creates Friendly Competition

Competition is generally not something we associate with a business’s internal operations. You set goals for your salespeople and expect them to reach them. They don’t compete against each other – but rather only focus on reaching the objectives that have been defined for them.

Gamification strategies can create a sense of friendly competition amongst your sales teams.

Let’s consider an example. You set a goal of 10 sales for the month per salesperson in the team, but you challenge the team members to get as many sales as possible. The 10-sale quota is the minimum, but you set up a screen displaying a leaderboard. By the end of the month, the three top-ranking sales counts will get rewards. 

These rewards can include anything from a bonus in addition to their salary to a voucher they can use to take their family out.

Instead of only aiming to close those ten sales, the sales staff will feel compelled to get as many sales as possible – and they want to see their name appear on the top three of the leaderboards.

Encourages Teamwork

When your business has multiple teams that work in sales, you can also use gamification to promote better teamwork. While you can continue with the strategy that rewards the top sales figures individually, you can also set up some friendly competition amongst the various teams.

This will motivate the team members to work together to achieve specific goals. Improvements in communication and employees that are better engaging with each other are sure ways to land more sales and bring in more revenue for your business.

Increases Retention

Gamification does not only motivate, but it can also be an excellent strategy for improving the retention of both customers and employees.

If you add gamification internally, you’ll motivate your employees to strive for success. You’ll have an easier time finding new employees when they know the high engagement rate and the reward system you have implemented. Existing employees will also be less likely to move to competitor companies, as they now find it more enjoyable to work for your organization.

In terms of customers, a loyalty or reward program can be great for ensuring they come back to you. Some companies even go as far as to add challenges that customers can complete on mobile devices. These challenges then allow the person to win prizes they can redeem at the store or on a website.

Are There Any Drawbacks To Consider?

When you want to implement a new process in your business, you want to ensure it won’t cause problems. Thus, you’ll also need to consider whether gamification has any drawbacks.

The only noticeable drawback is usually the time it takes to implement the system. You’ll need to choose the correct technique, find a software solution, and then work on an employee onboarding process. 

This may also require a training program to ensure employees know how the gamification elements will work. Once the training processes and implementation are behind you, however, you can fully utilize the advantages that gamification offers.

Deciding On Gamification Techniques

If you want to implement gamification in your business, then it’s essential to choose the right strategies and techniques. Education is important at this point – you need to read further about the different gamification elements you can use.

Start by deciding where you want to use gamification. This could be for customers or internally to motivate your employees. Companies may decide to implement strategies that target both employees and customers. With this said, it’s a good idea to start slow. You don’t want to overwhelm yourself.

We’re going to consider a couple of scenarios and techniques that are all excellent starting points:

• You can begin experimenting with gamification among your employees. It’s a common strategy that companies use in their sales department. Motivating staff in these departments can have a considerable positive impact on your company’s revenue.
• Another excellent area to start is corporate training. Many employees may feel they need more motivation to engage in training programs. This can lead to poor outcomes and affect the skills that your employees obtain when they attend these classes. Learner engagement is something that you can improve when you add game elements to the learning content that they need to study.
• Customer satisfaction is important. This is where your customer support team comes into play. Gamification can be used to motivate more positive behavior toward customers, even when the customer has a complaint. You can set up a points system that awards customer service consultants points based on customer ratings. After the consultant assists the customer, you ask them to rate their experience – and use this as a basis to distribute these points.
• Use virtual reality features to engage with customers. This could include a game where they can score points. You then have a scoreboard and provide badges based on specific achievements. These badges can be viewed on their profile and even gives them access to special perks – such as a 5% discount on purchases they make during the next three months.
• If your business offers educational services, such as an e-learning platform, you can use gamification to promote better engagement with the course a user takes. Similarly, you can award badges when the student can express their knowledge and showcase the skills they obtained while learning.

The idea is to bring some fun elements into the workspace. If you need to gain the skills to work on developing such a system, then contact professionals. Even though planning out a gamification strategy might be costly initially, it could pay off in the long run.

Choosing The Right Gamification Platform

When gamification is adequately implemented, you can see better retention of employees and customers, depending on the techniques you choose. Even mundane processes your employees do may experience greater engagement – as they now have something to strive for.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that the software you choose to implement gamification in non-game contexts plays a vital role in the success of your strategy. The software you opt for should offer you everything you expect from the gamification elements you wish to add to your business.

Here are a couple of tips that will help you decide on the right gamification platform:

• Understand whether the gamification will target customers or employees.
• Know what you want the gamification software to offer. Learning gamification is different from sales gamification, for example.
• Consider the training process that will be required to get employees onboard. Minimal compliance training can reduce hours lost during the onboarding process.
• Setting up training outcomes, sales outcomes, or other objectives should be easy – and you should be able to track these factors efficiently.
• Take into account the reward system you want to use. Point systems are popular, but other ways of rewarding employees and customers exist.

Spend some time researching and choosing a system that complies with your expectations. A good system can produce both intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation. The system should not be overcomplicated, as this makes it hard for new employees to get on board.

Spinify Can Help

Research shows that gamification is an excellent addition to different kinds of businesses. Whether through employee training or the sales process, game mechanics help motivate your staff, create friendly competition, and drastically impact overall performance.
Spinify understands gamification and asserts itself as a leader in the industry. Our gamification software can give you a competitive edge and help you see a boost in employee engagement. Book a demo today to see how we can help.