Many companies run their businesses based on employees competing against one another to do better, and be the best. Take Yahoo!, for instance, who made it company policy to grade employee performance on a bell curve, and then fire those performing at the low end. Amazon uses a similar "stack" ranking system, where the lowest ranked employees may find their jobs at risk. This practice, intended to motivate, does the opposite for employees. Instead, they work in fear of losing their jobs, and morale suffers. When morale suffers, so does productivity.
Gamification is a recent trend in the workplace, intended to boost productivity, engage employees, and more. According to Gartner, 80% of gamification projects fail, mostly a result of poor design, often as a result of inciting competition between employees much like the ranking approach. This doesn't mean gamification can't work in the office. Rather than using a competitive style, gamification can be used to foster collaboration and teamwork.
How Gamification Helps Human Resources
Enterprise gamification can be used to onboard and train new employees. Pharmaceutical company Galderma used gamification to train their sales employees on new products. Even though the company did not make participation mandatory, nearly 92% of the targeted employees played the game. In the end, they had a stronger sales force, with more sales.
Employee engagement is a key reason why businesses turn to gamification. Target uses gamification with their cashiers. The register monitors how quickly the cashier is able to handle each client, and provides simple, yet immediate feedback on their screen. They'll see either at G, Y, or R, for green, yellow, or red, respectively, indicating whether or not they've met their speed requirements for the last transaction. If they're slowed down, they know they need to try and speed up, but if they're doing well, they're immediately notified of that, too, to promote a morale boost. They'll also see the average speed of the last several transactions, so they have a personal "best" to beat. Older employees complain that this is just another way for the company to watch them, but younger employees like it because they grew up around video games and like seeing it applied to other aspects of their lives.
Gamification and Improved Productivity
The fact of the matter is, your business needs productive, engaged employees. When you have engaged employees, you'll get higher service in terms of quality and productivity, which inevitably translates to higher customer satisfaction, leading to more sales and profit, which leads to higher shareholder returns.
According to the Workplace Research Foundation, increasing employee engagement investments by just 10% can increase company profits by $2,400 per employee, per year. And if that isn't enough to convince you, highly engaged employees are 38% more likely to have above average productivity. According to Bersin and Associates, employers are spending $720 million a year on employee engagement, and this number is expected to reach $1.5 billion within a couple of years. Companies fostering engaged employee ambassadors are reporting nearly three fewer sick days taken every year per employee, compared to companies with weak employee engagement reporting an average of 6.19 sick days per year.
According to Dale Carnegie, 71% of employees are not fully engaged, and $11 billion is lost every year in the United States as a result of employee turnover. But, companies with engaged employees are able to outperform companies without them by up to 202%.
Gamification, when designed transparently so all employees know what's going on, and intended to promote collaboration between employees can be one of the ways to boost engagement. In fact, a 2013 study from Aberdeen Group revealed companies with gamification in place not only see a 48% improvement in employee engagement, they see a 36% reduction in employee turnover.
The gamification industry is expected to reach $86.1 billion in 2016. If you're planning on investing in employee engagement to increase your business profits, why not consider investing some of that into gamification? Not sure where to start? Ask employees what they'd like to see in their training and how they'd like to see it done.
Gamification is a recent trend in the workplace, intended to boost productivity, engage employees, and more. According to Gartner, 80% of gamification projects fail, mostly a result of poor design, often as a result of inciting competition between employees much like the ranking approach. This doesn't mean gamification can't work in the office. Rather than using a competitive style, gamification can be used to foster collaboration and teamwork.
How Gamification Helps Human Resources
Enterprise gamification can be used to onboard and train new employees. Pharmaceutical company Galderma used gamification to train their sales employees on new products. Even though the company did not make participation mandatory, nearly 92% of the targeted employees played the game. In the end, they had a stronger sales force, with more sales.
Employee engagement is a key reason why businesses turn to gamification. Target uses gamification with their cashiers. The register monitors how quickly the cashier is able to handle each client, and provides simple, yet immediate feedback on their screen. They'll see either at G, Y, or R, for green, yellow, or red, respectively, indicating whether or not they've met their speed requirements for the last transaction. If they're slowed down, they know they need to try and speed up, but if they're doing well, they're immediately notified of that, too, to promote a morale boost. They'll also see the average speed of the last several transactions, so they have a personal "best" to beat. Older employees complain that this is just another way for the company to watch them, but younger employees like it because they grew up around video games and like seeing it applied to other aspects of their lives.
Gamification and Improved Productivity
The fact of the matter is, your business needs productive, engaged employees. When you have engaged employees, you'll get higher service in terms of quality and productivity, which inevitably translates to higher customer satisfaction, leading to more sales and profit, which leads to higher shareholder returns.
According to the Workplace Research Foundation, increasing employee engagement investments by just 10% can increase company profits by $2,400 per employee, per year. And if that isn't enough to convince you, highly engaged employees are 38% more likely to have above average productivity. According to Bersin and Associates, employers are spending $720 million a year on employee engagement, and this number is expected to reach $1.5 billion within a couple of years. Companies fostering engaged employee ambassadors are reporting nearly three fewer sick days taken every year per employee, compared to companies with weak employee engagement reporting an average of 6.19 sick days per year.
According to Dale Carnegie, 71% of employees are not fully engaged, and $11 billion is lost every year in the United States as a result of employee turnover. But, companies with engaged employees are able to outperform companies without them by up to 202%.
Gamification, when designed transparently so all employees know what's going on, and intended to promote collaboration between employees can be one of the ways to boost engagement. In fact, a 2013 study from Aberdeen Group revealed companies with gamification in place not only see a 48% improvement in employee engagement, they see a 36% reduction in employee turnover.
The gamification industry is expected to reach $86.1 billion in 2016. If you're planning on investing in employee engagement to increase your business profits, why not consider investing some of that into gamification? Not sure where to start? Ask employees what they'd like to see in their training and how they'd like to see it done.