Using Gamification to Maximise Employee Engagement

The typical cycle might look like this: a business needs to sell a certain amount of, say, widgets, to meet their revenue targets and so they figure out specific KPIs for areas like sales and customer experience.

It’s a common system, but it’s ineffective and doesn’t lead to innovation. People and their motivators are more complex than a list of outcomes—each person is unique, diverse individual.

When considering how to boost company and employee performance, look at the root cause: what makes employees engaged in their work?

Engaged employees are those who feel valued, see progress, and do their best. They, in turn, can provide excellent customer experiences that lead to high sales.

One way to improve employee engagement it is through gamification—the introduction of play into the workspace to tap into internal motivators.

It allows leaders to connect on that human level and determine what makes their employees tick.

Profile of an Engaged Employee

Employee engagement, or disengagement, is the root cause of any performance or operational issue in a company. So, what makes employees engaged? It comes down to these factors:

• Being a contributor in the workplace.
• Feeling valued and seen.
• Seeing progress in their work.
• Being part of something bigger than themselves.

Tapping into these motivators is powerful.

If a company can provide this kind of work environment, the job itself doesn’t matter.

Engaged employees lead to more innovation and creativity because they have the freedom and safety to try new things.

They will also be able to provide a strong customer experience that makes customers happy, leading to increased sales and strong company performance.

Why Play Works

Gamification is adding elements of play into traditionally non-game environments.

For example, a workplace might do an exercise where they bring in front-line workers to speak with executives about the realities of working on the floor.

But, those lower-level employees are likely to be nervous about speaking up and sharing their true thoughts with their bosses.

An alternate approach using gamification techniques would be an exercise where front-line employees are given some materials and asked to build “what leadership looks like,” or “the organization’s biggest challenges.”

Employees will forget about the executives in the room and just engage in the game, providing valuable information and learning opportunities.

Gamification is an exciting opportunity to build innovation in our workplaces.

Play as a learning tool works for a number of reasons:

• Play suspends us from reality by creating a fun and unique environment.
• Play allows our minds to be open to being creative and trying things differently.
• Play engages more of our senses and bodies, not just our minds.
• Play taps into intrinsic motivators, which are more effective than extrinsic motivators.

Getting Started: Embracing Diversity

The starting point towards increasing employee engagement is to truly see your employees for who they are: unique, diverse, and everyone with something to offer.

Each person has their own motivators, too.

So, trying to put everyone through the same set of (supposed) external motivators like KPIs won’t work.

If you’re looking for the secret sauce for employee engagement, this is it: take a step back and realize that we have an amazing diversity as humans.

Learn about your employees and their strengths, determine how you can use it, and embrace their behaviours and contributions over traditional ideas of employee output.