Gamify at Work: How to Tap Into the Potential Within Your Organization

By Jason Kelly

Gamify at Work opens up the opportunity for organizations to improve their operational efficiencies through employee behavioural changes. Gamification is the technique of applying game mechanics (points, leaderboards, levels, challenges, badges and rewards) in a non-gaming environment. Gamify at work explores the employee behaviour levers that can be moved to improve employee performance.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Tellwell Talent
• Release date: Jan 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780228800996

Book preview

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Table of Contents

What is Gamification and Gamify at Work?

Do we just play games at work?

What are the basics of gamification?

How does a game alter behaviour?

Why is gamify at work important to employers?

Best Practices for Gamify at work

Mainstream gamification

A New Way of Thinking?

The traditional workplace shifts

Casual workplace

9-5 working day

Safety and Wellness

Workplace location

What is new with gamify at work

Employee Evolution

Background

Workforce education profile

Workforce age

Labour skills

Demographic/work mobility

Job classifications

Future of Jobs

Section 2 – Deep Dive

Workplace Engagement

What is workplace morale and engagement?

How do you measure engagement?

Gamify at work and morale/engagement

How can your organization utilize gamify at work for engagement?

Performance Management

What are performance management and goal setting?

How do you measure performance management?

Gamify at work and performance management

Productivity

What is productivity?

How do you measure productivity?

Gamify at work and productivity

Employee collaboration

Time Management

Skills, knowledge and capability

Gamify at work and productivity examples

Career Progression

What is career progression?

Gamify at work and career progression

Mentoring

Career planning

Skills, knowledge and capability

Customer Service

What is customer service?

How do you measure customer service?

Gamify at work and customer service

Customer service employees

Customers

Innovation

What is employee innovation?

How do you measure employee innovation?

But, how do you measure innovation as a strategic objective?

Gamify at work and employee innovation

Workplace Learning

Onboarding

Leadership development

New products/services

SECTION 3 - REALIZATION OF GAMIFY AT WORK

Knowledge Capital

What is knowledge?

Knowledge framework

Knowledge solutions

Gamify at work and knowledge

Lessons learned

Expertise location

Corporate communication

Centre of Excellence

Implementing knowledge capital gamification

What is the Return on Investment?

What is ROI?

Gamify at work and ROI

Measuring success

Realization of Gamify at Work

Framework to enable

Discovery phase

Identify strategic objectives

Setting strategic objectives

Understanding existing processes, people and technology impacted

Change - Awareness

Design phase

Rules of environment

Environment

User/player

Enhance

Change - desire

Build and plan phase

Technology planning

Minimum viable product (MVP)

Vendor selection/system design

Reporting (business insights)

Change - knowledge and ability

Operationalization Phase

Rollout application

Organizational change and the Target Operating Model:

Expand release cycle

Validation

Change - reinforced knowledge

Conclusion

Bibliography

Copyrights

What is Gamification and Gamify at Work?

Do we just play games at work?

Gamify at work is the application of gamification within an organizational environment. Organizations are continually seeking ways to change employee behaviour and gamification is an approach that can be used to help create a more engaging and focused workforce.

Gamification is not the exercise of traditional gameplay at work. Organizations with a less traditional formal organizational structure may allow employees to play games, either through gaming consoles or physically partake in gameplay, but that speaks more to their internal culture than gamification being used to create behavioural change. When organizations allow employees to play at work they are doing this to support the employee demographic key desired of fun/engaging working environment. There are many great examples of organizations that embrace play at work—but this is not what gamification is about!

If playing video games is not gamification, then what is gamify at work? It is the application of game mechanics into what would be considered a non-gaming context such as an administrative office working environment or sales department.

To emphasize the simplicity of gamify at work, the following is an example of it in operation. When you arrive at a communal photocopier. Unless your company has installed a print-and-release system, you will be presented with several printouts, some of which will, hopefully, be yours; the other printouts are from unknown sources. If you wished to gamify this daily activity, you could provide an employee with a reward of points/credits for trying to identify the recipient of the printout.

The employee would have an awareness of the points/credits available for the activity, they would be able to submit that the work was completed and receive feedback on their activity. If the employee did this every day as part of their typical work activity, they could level up to become the master of this task within the office environment. Once they are at the master level, the gamification system could set them challenges, such as speed to complete the task, or ability to convert people into collecting their printouts when they send them to the printer. As more challenges are completed, the employee progresses up the leaderboard for the department, or wider company, for performing what is typically a thankless task. At the end of each month, the department provides a prize structure of gifts/benefits that the leading employees can make use of.

The printer example is hardly the most exciting activity and reward system in the world, but it is evidence of gamification being used to adjust behaviour towards an organizational goal. The organizational goal is reducing the number of misread or lost printouts from the office printer. Beyond the identification and distribution of printouts, the program could have easily been a points system for reducing your colour prints to a cheaper black and white printout or reducing your amount of printouts overall.

The key take away is you can gamify at work to help improve the organizational process(es) in a manner that is engaging and rewarding for your employees. Each situation will be different, and this book will help you understand the opportunity as well as a framework for executing a gamification program.

What are the basics of gamification?

To understand more on the topic of gamify at work lets now explain the concept of gamification further and the application of game mechanics within your organization. Game mechanics are a way that supports the control of the activity your organization has identified. In addition to supporting the activity, it also outlines the actions and processes framework for which gamify at work will operate. Within the gamification approach, the processes and activities are overlapped with rewards and rules in which the employee can play, it is optional for employees to take part in your gamified environment. It is up to the organization to develop the game that provides an experience that encourages the behaviour or reaction needed; if the game mechanics do not reward or stimulate a response, then no employee will complete the actions to obtain rewards/points.

The following is a summary of the game mechanics:

Points/credits – These are the currency of the game environment. You either gain points for an activity or lose points for not completing an activity. You cannot obtain points for not doing anything (what would be the point in that?). Typically, the points have no monetary value, but rather open access to other options or gifts.

Levels – The level allows you, as aplayer, to obtain asense of mastery or progress. You need to complete activities and acquire points to progress through levels.

Challenges – What are you doing to generate points and progress through levels? The challenges need to be attainable—but not too easy, nor too hard. Challenges can be spread across agroup if the organization wishes to encourage collaboration on aspecific task.

Virtual goods and spaces – This allows you access to unlock additional areas of the game environment or goods/services that can be redeemed.

Leaderboards – Leaderboards tap into acore physiologic aspect of employees wanting to be better than others. Your progress up or down the leaderboard is dependent upon your points generated and levels progressed.

Gifts/reward (real items) – When the game rewards transcend from virtual to something real, such as abonus or job progression.

Rules (or game mechanics) in which the gamify at work operates are needed to create game dynamics. Game dynamics are the emergent behaviour generated when the employee takes part in the gamification activity. The game mechanics are the rule elements of the game; and, in general, there are five elements that need to be regarded:

Constraints – These are the rules, created by the business, that defines how the employee works during the game experience. The constraints are typically the first rule set developed within the game mechanics. These are all built into the design of the game and create the environment for play.

Emotions – This is akey element of the game. Does the play generate apositive or negative emotion during the game experience? In addition, does this emotion drive engagement with the game and at ahigher level with the organizational objective? It is important for the organization to identify the emotions it is seeking to create during the gameplay experience.

Narrative – Does the game have astory or overarching objective that runs throughout the game experience? There can be numerous games within agamification program; it is the narrative that connects the games into an overall experience, which is shaped by the organization’s goal.

Progression – How is the game player moving through the game, and what level of engagement are they generating as they progress? As employees take part in the game they progress through different levels and stages. This progression taps into the conscious state of mastery, in which aplayer develops the skills to perform the gamify at work tasks more effectively. Each employee will have varying motivators when interacting with your gamification