According to a Gallup research released in April 2012, less than 1 out of 10 employees are ‘engaged’ in their jobs. The remaining are ‘not engaged’ (60 %) or are ‘actively disengaged’ (32 %) – the most harmful form of disengagement. The survey caused a stir in the HR industry and everyone went out looking for a way to achieve “more engagement” from their employees.
What is gamification?
Gamification is the way of applying gaming structures and ideas to an activity or a task so as to make them all the more entertaining and engaging for the participants and help them accomplish their objectives. Gamification uses our desire for status, accomplishment, competition and to be a piece of a comprehensive social network to build engagement. These Gamification practices includes rewarding the user for completing the desired activity and creating leaderboards to strive further engagement. These features increases the level of engagement in a gamification model as the willingness to return increases. When you gamify high-value interactions with customers, employees, and partners, you drive more sales, stronger collaboration, better ROI, deeper loyalty, higher customer satisfaction and more.
Gamification in Corporate Training
The harsh reality in the present work environment is that a significant number of employees become detached or disengaged from their job and training. Gamification in corporate training is a practical solution that can reduce worker disregard and lead to a better association among workers and the job to be done. By design, games are interesting. When they are combined with instructional courses, they invite a level of attention and enthusiasm that other methods of learning have difficulty achieving. In game-based learning occasions, learners are involved in a competition with at least one other learner or participate individually in a reward based learning experience. With adequate use, gamification encourages learners to utilize their learning in the day to day activities by challenging them with real-time problems which they can relate to their job at hand. The increased popularity and usage of gaming techniques can be attributed to the spirit of competition; it not only makes learning more enjoyable,
Benefits of Gamification Learning in the workplace
1. Employee Engagement
Gamification enables competitive environment with the virtual rewards it offers to the employees. Leaderboards, scores, and badges drive the employees to perform better and keep them motivated to be actively involved in the training. When learner engagement is high, there is greater recall and retention. With gamification, learners show high levels of engagement as they learn and have fun at the same time.
2. Instant access to Performance feedback
Feedbacks are helpful to monitor the performance of the employees enrolled in a training program. With gamification model it is easier to track the progress of an employee with the help of Leaderboards and rewards. Gamification also helps to deliver even individual feedbacks to the learner which is otherwise not done in a traditional classroom program.
3. Increase in Learning retention
Due to increased engagement and competitive environment employees tend to learn and perform better during a training program powered by gamification than that in a regular eLearning program or a traditional classroom program. This makes them learn the topics more effectively.
4. Provides safe environment for learning
Gamification provides a safe and effective environment to its learners. Employees feel at ease when in a gamified environment. There is less hesitation while interacting with a game than a teacher in a regular classroom program. Learners get to place themselves in circumstances similar to real life situations and the decisions they make here go a long way in helping them retain knowledge.
With all these benefits and factors contributing to a better learner experience, gamification for corporate training helps rake in a significant gain for organizations and their businesses.