Boost Your Team’s Motivation Through Gamification

Employee engagement at work has become a key issue for companies, and we hear a lot about it. But what exactly is it?

An employee is said to be engaged when they see their company as their own. Their work inspires them. They are constantly looking for ways to improve their company. This is stronger than motivation and is a long-term state. A motivated employee will work hard when there is a reward, while an engaged employee will invest themselves because it gives them a sense of accomplishment.

Disengagement at work costs between $450 million and $500 million each year in the United States, according to a Gallup study. This astronomical figure can be explained by the fact that only 13% of American employees are actively engaged in their work.

But how can you improve employee engagement in your company? Gamification can help you do just that.

Gamification is the application of certain rules from mainstream games to make business processes more engaging and bring about lasting behavioral change.

Here are four ways to boost employee engagement with gamification:

Progression

Generally speaking, people need to feel that they are progressing. If they feel that they are improving and that the company is helping them to progress, they will be more committed to the company. Gamification allows employees to train themselves on their own initiative. This means that they can train online and receive badges/points that are visible to everyone for completing an action (watching a PowerPoint presentation/completing a quiz). So when the IHG hotel group decided to implement a gamification strategy for its training, it introduced several skill levels. Thanks to gamification, the number of self-training actions by employees rose to 263.4, and the proportion of users with “expert” status reached 27%. Similarly, games can be organized for training purposes. For example, you can organize quizzes with questions about new products each time a product is released. Some companies even develop video games containing training content, which is gamification taken to the extreme.

The rewards

Rewarding an employee for the first time will motivate them and increase their commitment. But if they receive the same reward a second time, the motivating effect will diminish. This is called habituation. The solution is to increase the rewards. However, you will quickly reach a threshold where a higher reward becomes too expensive. With a traditional gamification system, you can award unlimited ranks and badges, so your employee always feels like they are progressing. Setting up challenges, especially for your salespeople, can also increase their engagement. If you reward your salespeople for each milestone they reach, they will be increasingly motivated to reach the next milestone.

Discover the Incenteev gamification solution in 10 minutes

The Rankings

The effect of gamification on employee engagement can also be seen in turnover. High turnover is a sign of low employee engagement, since engagement is, by definition, loyalty and commitment to the company’s mission. When Applebee’s, a restaurant chain, implemented a gamification plan, it saw its turnover drop by 20%. Here’s what they did. A ranking system was put in place, allowing employees to compare their performance within the same restaurant and between restaurants. All of this stimulated competition and increased everyone’s involvement.

Recruitment

If you can’t increase employee engagement, you can recruit more engaged employees. That’s what consulting firm KPMG did when it launched the game “80 Days: Race the World” to recruit interns. This game put them in real-life situations and confronted them with a series of problems related to their tasks around the world. It is a social game where internet users from all over the world compete against each other, ensuring maximum motivation. KPMG’s “values” are tested, such as cooperation: it is possible to cooperate on Twitter.

Employee engagement adds value to your business and increases productivity. The more engaged your employees are, the less likely they are to leave your company and the more they will want to participate in its development. Gamification is a great way to increase engagement.

What do you do to ensure your employees are engaged?