Article

The Case for Gamification in Talent Management (Benefits & Examples)

Social media, mobile apps, and games are woven into daily life. Gamification, a newly popular trend among both managers and employees, uses these parts of life to make work more fun and rewarding.

Let’s dig into more of what gamification is and how to use it within talent management!

Gamification at work

Gamification encourages employees to pursue and attain specific goals and objectives. Games add a level of entertainment and connectivity to daily tasks.

Employees can earn points, achieve special statuses, and win rewards (like bonuses or extra vacation time) as they progress toward their goals. Done well, it can be highly effective, since games tap into the human desire for social collaboration and achievement.

The key to effective gamification in talent management is to utilize the motivational techniques embedded in gaming and to build the reward structure to align with the organization’s goals.

The upside is positive, goal-oriented employee behavior. The results of gamification at work include:

  • Higher customer satisfaction
  • Higher-value interactions
  • Improved ROI
  • Stronger collaboration
  • Increased retention
  • Employee loyalty

Examples of gamification at Work

Gamification can be an effective tool in many areas of talent management including:

  • Career development
  • Team building and collaboration
  • Product training
  • Safety and cybersecurity education
  • Leadership
  • Sales
  • Onboarding
  • General learning

Here are a few examples of the many ways you can leverage gamification in talent management.

1. Motivate and direct employee behavior

Gamification is an effective tool to encourage employee productivity and engagement. The key to success is understanding the specific behaviors you want to train. Then, you can organize the rewards of the game to encourage them, as Microsoft did.

Microsoft Example

Microsoft wanted call center employees to be more productive, engaged, and invested in positive customer outcomes. They implemented a gamified program to reward agents with points and badges. Employees achieved personalized goals and were given fun microlearning opportunities.

They saw a 10% increase in productivity and a 12% decrease in absenteeism.

Evergreen Example

We have our own example of how much adding gamification elements to a project can drive employee productivity up.

One of our university clients encountered problems with the misallocation of philanthropic funds following a software implementation done by another professional services partner. Funds were mapped to the wrong organizations and could not be accessed by the intended recipients.

Evergreen stepped in to reassign about 750 funds, conduct audits, and ensure accuracy. We brought on 11 philanthropic accountants and completed the task within 8 weeks.

Daily reports, healthy competition between team members, and financial incentives resulted in 100% backlog clearance, project completion 2 weeks ahead of schedule, and cost savings for the client.

2. Engage employees in training programs

Gamification at work can make training programs fun. You can create opportunities for individuals or departments to compete for rewards, which can dramatically drive utilization.

Check out this company that saw dramatic increases in training participation after gamification:

Cisco Example

Cisco wanted employees to improve their social media skillsets and invested in a 46-course program. Unfortunately, the program was so large it was overwhelming for participants.

To help employees navigate the training, they introduced the following:

  • Three levels of certification, from Specialist to Master
  • Four sub-certifications for individual departments where they wanted to encourage engagement
  • Team challenges, combining both competition and collaboration

By breaking the program into levels and challenges, they were able to increase engagement among key employees.

3. Increase Sales

Sales is, by nature, competitive and goal oriented! Gamification can deliver individualized goals, micro-training, and feedback to sales staff. This helps each salesperson understand what they need to do to improve.

Verizon Example

Verizon’s cellular sales depend on informed, engaged employees who deliver relevant and positive customer experiences. They were looking for innovative ways to engage staff and keep them up to date.

Their goals included the following:

  • Modernize training and coaching to fit individual employees’ needs
  • Have an immediate impact on performance
  • Align employee and company goals, helping them focus on new products or promotions without forgetting about the other available products

To sustain employee engagement, they introduced Elevate to cellular sales employees. The program combines advanced gamification, real-time progress tracking, and personalized microlearning.

Employees can see which KPIs get them to the next level to win perks, leadership opportunities, and extra compensation.

As a result, handset sales increased by 53%, phone accessory sales increased by 45%, and combo sales doubled.

How to make gamification at work effective

If you’ve been engaged in a game for an extended period, you understand what makes them fun. The basics of effective gamification in talent management include:

  • Positive competition
  • Collaboration
  • Social engagement
  • Points and rewards
  • Redemption systems
  • Achievement levels
  • Instant feedback
  • Progress/development tracking

Because repetitive templates can become boring, you’ll want a personalized platform that is varied for novelty, transparent, and interactive.

Mandatory games do not get the same results as voluntary games, so it’s imperative to not require your employees to play. But the more fun it is, the more engagement you will see. Think about how you can integrate the game into the company culture.

You can also learn about what motivates your employees through needs analysis and by analyzing game data.

You want to align the game’s action with your business’s goals, and understanding your employees will help you do that successfully. Monitoring metrics and making changes as you go will deliver the best results and keep your employees happy.

Gamify Your Workplace and Drive Results

A company’s employees are their best assets. When you gamify the workplace, you drive better business results by encouraging your employees to level up their performance. 

At Insight Global, we apply our extensive experience building teams and developing solutions to help your business thrive, and we excel at gamification in talent management. Our customer-built programs promote healthy competition and team collaborations, improve performance, and drive results.

Find out how we can gamify your workplace and drive success for your team. Get in touch with us today.