Tips on how to boost employee performance with gamification

Gamification is one of the effective ways to make employees interested in the long-term company’s success and retain customers. The main benefits of a correctly-implemented gamification are

• A 60% increase in employee efficiency
• Increased pride in their work
• A strong team-building effect
• Lots of inspiration to experiment in new areas

Gamification helps to change human behavior: boring routine tasks and processes become more attractive. The most popular gamification request from companies is to motivate employees and increase their performance. Let’s consider how to do it.

Actionable gamification methods to increase performance of your employees

According to research, game mechanics work in business, and the volume of the global gamification market is growing. In 2014, it amounted to $1.4 billion, in 2018 – $5.5 billion, and in 2020 – $9.1 billion. It is expected that by 2025 it will reach $30.7 billion, and by 2026 – $38 billion.

People like to have fun. They like video games like Minecraft, online casinos like https://dr.bet, and various mobile entertainment services. This feature allows people to be more productive in their workplace through gamification. The world knows great examples of gamification in training, sales of services, data collection, and email newsletters, and gamification has proven itself in raising the corporate spirit.

There are many methods that largely depend on the ingenuity of the company’s HR managers. Let’s consider the most successful to boost employee performance.

Achievements tracking and recognition

This is one of the most common methods, the essence of which is to develop a system of achievements that can be “opened” for completing any complex or non-standard tasks. The most successful employees are rewarded with bonus points, special badges, and redards, which in the future, for example, can be exchanged for material goods.

Ratings

Ratings operate on the principle of competition. The highest places in the ratings are occupied by employees who best cope with the tasks. Ratings can be composed for any period of time – day, week, month. HR offers a scoring and reward system.

Bonuses

Bonuses can be awarded not only for the good performance of tasks but also, for example, for recommending new employees, onboarding them, speaking at various events, preparing presentations within the company, etc.

Competitions

Competitions are a great way to gamify when it comes to teamwork. Competitions between departments are always perceived with excitement because there is a chance to find out whose team is cooler. Competition inspires employees to perform their jobs as efficiently as possible to show their best skills to competitors and management, who will reward their efforts.

Quests

Quests are an unusual but forceful method to increase employee engagement in the long term. If employees, like Sherlock, plunge into the world of adventure at work, business, as practice shows, will go many times more efficiently.

Common gamification mistakes

The effectiveness of gamification implementation largely depends on management. It is important that every employee knows about game mechanics and understands how they work. To do this, you need to build the right system of communication and involvement.

Gamification methods that are of no interest to anyone

You can invest in gamification and then find that people are ignoring your ideas. That is why at the stage of project development, a team of reputable employees of the company is needed. These influencers will tell their colleagues what will and won’t work.

Very complex methods

People come to work to do work-related tasks. They often do not have time to fill out huge questionnaires, register on 10 platforms and study instructions for obtaining badges on 100 sheets. It is important to choose a method that is simple, intuitive, and does not cause additional questions.

Abuse of punishments

Some companies add negative elements to gamification: employees are kind of punished but in the game. You have to be very careful when using these tools, otherwise, you will scare people away: no one wants to play a game where they constantly lose.

What else to consider before trying it with your team

Gamification is an effective business tool that allows you to raise the corporate spirit and increase the productivity of employees. Besides, it helps:

• Increase the loyalty and involvement of the staff
• Reduce staff turnover, recruiting and onboarding costs for new employees
• Reduce the time for adaptation and training of new employees
• Increase brand awareness and sales

Poorly-implemented gamification may only complicate the routine processes in your business. However, if you approach the process correctly and implement the right techniques, you’ll surely reap numerous benefits of gamification for employee motivation.