Has your business tried using gamification methods to improve employee engagement?
Did you know that gamification activities could not only improve employee engagement but customer engagement as well?
Many companies have opted to use gamification techniques to offer game-like incentives to motivate their employees. Gamification can improve training methods and build a stronger, more connected workforce. What, though, is gamification exactly? Well, gamification is when businesses incorporate gaming elements like leaderboards, rewards, and badges into everyday work situations.
Gamification aims to simplify and improve learning efforts, boost employee morale, and increase employee engagement, not only with their co-workers but the company as well. People learn and retain information better when the information is taught to them in a fun and interactive way which is why more and more businesses are using gamification in business training.
You have probably been involved in gamification exercises at one time in your life and found that it was an effective and entertaining way for you to effectively learn important information. As gamification becomes more well-known and widespread, more and more businesses will opt to use this effective learning method to improve all aspects of their business.
Here are a few gamification trends many employers are seeing emerge in the workforce and why gamification for small businesses has become very popular.
Enhanced Employee Training
Traditional learning solutions usually treat all employees the same, regardless of their learning style but high performance requires progressive learning levels. Gamification can help your small business save on costs associated with training, speed up the onboarding process of new employees, create more equal learning opportunities, and create a feeling of pride in employees when they progress their growth in the company. When your business turns boring, mandatory processes into a way for employees to have a bit of friendly competition with each other, they’ll not only retain the information you share with them, but they also won’t mind having to learn about sexual harassment or new software.
Boost Customer Loyalty
Since gamification motivates a target audience, gamification is a great tool to use to boost the loyalty of your customers, as well as your employees. Most people enjoy games and tend to interact more deeply in activities that are framed in a game construct which makes gamification an excellent way for you to improve the engagement of your customers. Gamification marketing is beginning to see a major boost as employers realize the massive benefits this method could provide to not only their employee engagement efforts but their customer engagement efforts as well.
To help you get started with your gamification journey, here are a few free gamification tools you can use to improve the engagement of your employees and customers.
- GamEffective
- Spinify
- Zunos
- Qualifio
- Engagedly
- Picnic
- Mindspace
- Punchtab
Mobile Apps & Social Media
Social media and mobile apps are used multiple times a day, every day, by pretty much everyone. A new trend for gamification we’ll see in 2018 is the rise in use of these platforms for gamification activities. Millennials and Gen Z are now flooding the workforce and to stay relevant and engage these younger employees, businesses are looking to connect with them on their level, in a way they can easily understand and enjoy. More and more employers are now integrating gamification with social media and mobile platforms to make their gamification efforts more effective.