Gamification has emerged as a significant trend in recent years and today game elements are utilized, not only in the consumer markets, but also internally in companies. The reason for using gamification at workplace is to increase employee engagement.
According to Gallup’s 2015 survey on employee engagement “worldwide, only 13 percent of employees working for an organization are engaged” (Mann & Harter, 2016), which means that a staggering 87 percent are ‘not engaged’, meaning they lack motivation and are less likely to invest discretionary effort in organizational goals or outcomes. This is a serious challenge in the business world, which the authors call “a worldwide employee engagement crisis” that leads to poor turnovers and productivity and has “serious and potentially lasting repercussions for the global economy” (Mann & Harter, 2016).
Companies are looking solutions for this problem and one of these solutions is bringing an element of gamification into internal processes. “Companies with an engaged workforce earn on average 2.5 times more revenue and more than twice the net annual income of those with low engagement levels.” (Wong, 2014) According to Watson, “the application of game elements has both employee-facing and consumer-facing benefits, but it’s in the realm of employee engagement that the software has experienced its biggest growth.”(Watson, 2014)
Based on studies employee response to game mechanics is mostly positive. According to Watson “over 70 percent of employees felt engagement software would help them perform better at work. Over 25 percent said it would help them stay motivated. 54 percent of respondents indicated that they would be more likely or much more likely to perform a task if it had gameelements.” (Watson, 2014)
The reason games work so well in engaging employees is “because games offer clearly articulated rewards for each point players score and new level they achieve, they trigger the release of dopamine, a hormone in the brain that encourages us to explore and try new things” (Schawbel, 2013). “Your body releases dopamine when you experience pleasure. This pleasure includes all kinds of things, including rewards. The more goals you achieve, the more dopamine it releases, and the easier it is to stay motivated. Gamification tries to tap into this by offering you rewards for the completion of small goals. In the context of gamification, this means the best games tap into your intrinsic motivation while providing rewards. Intrinsic motivation also comes from friendly competition.”(Klosowski, 2014)
I can see how adding a gamification element to work improves productivity…it reminds me of that TED talk we saw with Jane McGonigal, “Gaming can make a better world”.
I wish more employers would jump on this bandwagon!
Yes, I also found that TED talk very interesting and informing. Now we just need a plan how to get all those gamers to use their superpowers for good!