Guide to Gamification - How Can It Help Your Business Be More Productive, Faster?

Most business owners and company executives can’t fathom the thought of workers playing games when they’re supposed to be working.

The idea that this can significantly boost their productivity and performance is even harder to grasp. However, reputable development and learning experts praise the gamification strategy, and the impacts of this practical approach in business may surprise you.

From providing continuous training to personnel, to being an effective way to evaluate business performance, gamification continues to be a surprisingly good method of increasing staff retention, engagement, and productivity.

Still, it’s among the most overlooked techniques and most entrepreneurs and company executives are still unaware of what it entails.

What’s Gamification in Business?

Gamification refers to the process whereby a business integrates game mechanics into an existing system to stimulate employee loyalty, participation, and engagement.

A study published in Medium notes that about 90% of personnel report increased productivity in working environments that have adopted the gamification approach. Another 72% believe that the concept inspires them to become more productive. The same study also notes that game-based motivation in business can grow the company’s engagement levels by up to 48%!

The numbers tell it all. When you do it right, gamification can significantly grow your engagement and productivity among your staff.

But how exactly does it achieve the results?

Well, it all narrows down to basic psychology. Think about when you last played cards with a close relative. Despite it being a friendly game, you were still compelled to put your best effort. If you emerged the winner, the surge of victory was undeniable, and you felt a sense of accomplishment. Gamification in business attempts to instil the same feeling among users within a company setup.

The approach is available for all forms of business.

How Gamification Impacts Your Business Operations

Overall, gamification can make you more productive. Here are the benefits enjoyed by savvy entrepreneurs who’ve implemented gamification in their workplaces:

It Boosts Staff Engagement

It’s becoming clearer that learning online is easier than via traditional classroom sessions. According to Forbes, learning retention rates on web platforms ranges between 25% and 60%. Retention associated with classroom education, on the other hand, lies between 8% and 10%. The reason for this distinct difference is that online learning engages the three types of learning.

Gamification also appeals to the three learning types: kinaesthetic, auditory and visual. This is because, depending on your particular implementation, it leverages sound, images, and videos alongside interaction. Learners will not just enhance their engagement, but will also retain more knowledge.

The competitive aspect of gamification is also another critical element that allows learners to progress through the gameplay (learning) in increasingly difficult levels. Creating a sense of competition offers a combination of instant gratification and performance comparison, which can significantly boost staff morale and engagement.

Gamification Is Microlearning

The surge in online usage and social media popularity has led to the creation of shorter attention spans among modern-day learners. As such, any form of education has to be quick and to the point. Microlearning has proven to be a more effective approach to help learners retain their learned knowledge.

Gamification training can be delivered in small chunks that are more manageable, boosting learning retention rates significantly. The process will make you shift from offering (often) long, intense training in the form of seminars, instructions, and external training programs. Instead, you’ll have brief digital content that’s accessible to learners at their most convenient time and their own pace.

The ROI Is Higher Than Conventional Learning

As a digital form of education, gamification stands out among the most efficient approaches in terms of cost, time, and resources. It also offers a faster training experience than traditional instructor-led training because quick learners can move through it at their own pace. This means a higher ROI, especially considering learners are likely to find it easier to retain their new knowledge using this approach.

The option is also cost-effective and demands fewer resources and strategies from the IT department. It can also be done on-the-job without the need to send staff to external training. The learning is not only more effective, but the fact that it’s completed internally makes it an efficient training tool.

You’ll Get Results

The gamification learning approach has seen excellent results within sales, managerial, customer service, leadership, and technical training aspects of a business. This is mainly because it’s practical in real-life working scenarios.

Simulation and virtual role-play games, for instance, are tremendously useful in enhancing the problem-solving and decision-making skills of staff. Gamification’s realism allows personnel to learn through trial and error, though they’ll not face any negative consequence. As such, employees are free to try out new approaches while maintaining a solutions-oriented attitude.

Gamification Solutions Examples

Microsoft Dynamics users can take advantage of gamification tools to boost productivity and make it easy for you to adopt new technology. There’s a good guide available here.

You can also leverage a selection of third-party bolt-ons for Microsoft 365 products to achieve the same objective.

These include:

Agile CRM – The tool’s gamification feature is designed to keep sales teams focused and improving everyday numbers. The best part is that the solution treats sales as a game. It offers features like email reports, activity logs, custom leaderboards, advanced sales metrics, and real time alerts.
Hoopla – This platform engages staff by pulling performance information from apps and broadcasting these live updates on mobile devices, the web, or TV. This ensures teammates are personally engaged.
Evoq Engage – The gamification tool empowers informed, agile managers by offering a comprehensive community manager tool-set to boost your online community’s value and maximize member engagement.
Funifier Studio – The flexible, secure, and straightforward platform allows for simple user business gamification directly from their device. Administrators can easily create, assess, and go live with their preferred strategy.

These are only a few examples of the popular gamification solutions that you can integrate within your operations.

How do you get started?

If you’re interested in seeing what results gamification could have for your business, here’s the place to start.

Gamification works best when you can take an existing (proven and working) process and add game elements to it to encourage appropriate behaviours such as faster learning, deeper engagement, and more knowledge about a particular topic.

So before examining how you might gamify something, examine all your processes and identify if there’s one or more that

Requires learning to master
Requires time to master
Has an impact on a positive aspect of business: customer service, client retention, NPS scores or the like.
Is conducted by several people, so that you can set up competition.

If you have the right ingredients, it’s time to identify how you could add game elements to the process.

Key Takeaway

You want a more engaged, educated, innovative and productive workforce, and gamification is among the most effective strategies for both small and established business owners to achieve this. It offers a myriad of benefits to your company.

The most evident benefit is resource and time efficiency since you’ll cut on staff training expenses. You’ll also create a company culture of harnessing and encouraging a peer-learning environment. The overall efficiency, effectiveness, and benefits make gamification a valuable resource that both small and established entities shouldn’t overlook.