Motivated employees breathe life into the greyest of workplaces. However, keeping your staff engaged and in high spirits can be quite a struggle for any manager. Thankfully, there are many ways to take on this challenge and lift workplace morale – gamification often comes to mind here.
What does it mean? Gamification is essentially applying game mechanics to your work routine. Such include earning points for accomplishing certain tasks, awarding badges for points-based achievements and keeping track of employee performance through leaderboards.
It will take effort on the manager’s part, so is it all worth it?
Why gamification matters
A recent Gallup survey shows that highly engaged teams demonstrate a high level of productivity. This easily translates to a better quality of work, improved customer loyalty and higher profit margins. On the other hand, disengaged employees demonstrate higher absenteeism, lower productivity and decreased profitability.
Unmotivated employees cost companies about half a trillion dollars each year in lost productivity, showing us that there’s more at stake with disengagement beyond depressing workplace vibes. Gamification essentially injects elements of fun and challenge into the office, potentially improving your staff’s engagement levels.
How gamification can supercharge your workplace
Gamification taps into core human desires for achievement, autonomy and mastery. It is no wonder, then, that gamifying work can engage and motivate your staff, leading to the following benefits:
Increased employee productivity
Gamification – through tangible rewards, competition and the sense of achievement it brings – encourages workers to be effective and efficient at work. This can turn them into a more productive team that brings more profits to the company.
Improved morale and company culture
Games are fun, and turning work into something resembling one can add life to the office. Additionally, gamification can not just boost employee morale but also foster a healthy company culture based on teamwork and collaboration.
Enhanced learning and development through gamified training
Applying gamification to training, reskilling and upskilling programmes is an effective way to facilitate learning and employee development. It lets employees learn the ropes and develop existing skills in a fun and engaging manner.
Boosted creativity and problem-solving skills through gamified challenges
Gamification provides plenty of opportunities for managers to introduce challenges that can help improve the way their employees solve problems. These challenges can be designed to encourage out-of-the-box thinking, allowing workers to hone their creativity in the process.
Considerations before you level up
Gamification sure is a great way to improve staff engagement, but there are some things you need to take note of before you start experimenting with the concept. Here’s what you need to consider:
- Not all gamification strategies are created equal. For instance, some may be based on the spirit of competition while others encourage more collaboration. In any case, you will need to choose one that works best with your company.
- Tailor your approach to the company culture and workforce demographics. It pays to create a bespoke gamification set-up based on these two factors. This lets you come up with mechanics that are easy to implement and work with all the parties involved.
- Overly complex and poorly designed activities are both bad. They can backfire in that they may be hard to implement or may get in the way of employee engagement and productivity. As such, you will have to be sure to provide clear goals and create user-friendly mechanics.
Conclusion
For certain, gamification can greatly engage and motivate your staff. However, it’s not a sort of silver bullet to your employee disengagement problems. It always pays to consider your goals and all the stakeholders involved to successfully transform your workplace into an engaging and gamified haven of productivity.