Our Senior Management Team was tasked with memorising some key facts at an internal leadership conference last month. We wanted to be able to learn in a fun, easy to use format that would keep people engaged at a 4 day, 8 hours per day conference.
Once mastered, these facts and statistics would form knockout strength knowledge across the sales team and allow us to dazzle any potential customer. We’ll look at who was involved, what we accomplished and how we took learning to the next level with Gamebrain.
The competitors: In one corner, we have Damian Oldham – divisional director for New Business Sales and in the other corner, Mark Jones coming up from the Digital Learning & Compliance Sales team. These two sales superstars were happy to take the opportunity and show everyone exactly what they could do.
Round one: trial and error
First off the mark was Jones with a trial and error tactic that saw him jump from 7,630 points to 14,120, all before lunch. After some screenshot-led showboating with his sandwich, Jones managed to supercharge his score to 20,000+.
Jones already knew the answer to every question and was further optimising his strategy to see how quickly he could respond appropriately and outpace the other contestants.
By the end of round 1, Jones had Oldham pinned to the ropes.
Round two: counterattack
It was time for Oldham’s counterattack in round two. Starting with a morale hit by Jones bragging via email, Damian knew that he had to turn things around and lay down the thunder.
Stopping only for essential nourishment, Oldham made 19 plays from 17:41 to 20:12. It’s rumoured that both fighters continued playing during food and toilet breaks, but this is all just conjecture.
At this stage, the pair were switching between second and third place on the high score table. In a fun, competitive twist, CFO JJ’s avatar introduced each session dressed as a Wizard.
At 20:12 Oldham delivered what he hoped would be the knockout blow with 24,220 total points. His fingers danced across his iPhone as he answered every question quickly with 100% accuracy, firing them off like bullets.
He was at one with the company knowledge.
Round three: the competition thins
Jones bravely fights on in all his punch drunk glory. It’s 06.13 the next morning and despite eight more plays, he’s unable to bridge the gap by the end of the round.
As you can see from the chart, the difference came down to fractions of a second. With the fight over and the glory won, Oldham is crowned victorious.
The final tally was 19 plays to Oldham, who adopted a long-haul strategy and 18 for Jones who spread his attempts over multiple sessions. Both strong strategies, but there could only be one champion.
The results: victory is bittersweet
Oldham may have won the battle, but the war was far from over. Between the other players across the 4 day conference, Anne Atkinson, Director of Customer Success, ruled the roost and was named ultimate champion. All hail Queen Atkinson!
Each competitor took the quiz nine times on average, resulting in a brain full of fun facts that they won’t soon forget. Some might even be dreaming about them for the next three months.
What an epic week of Gamebraining!
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So how do you create a fun, engaging employee learning environment?
We’ll tell you what we did…
1) We made it easy to play
The Gamebrain App is easily accessible from a mobile device – and this was paramount to letting Oldham and Jones continue duking it out after hours. We created an easily accessible environment that enabled play on the sofa at night and in bed in the morning. Not everyone was as hungry for victory as these two, but providing that freedom to our competitors makes it feel significantly less like ‘work’.
2) We kept it short
Each challenge was bite-sized, with a complete game lasting only two minutes. This makes it a lot less daunting and easier for players to ‘have just one more go’. The shorter the task, the more engagement you’ll see.
3) We said it with a smile
Thanks to jovial animated characters, the whole experience is entertaining and light-hearted. A bit of healthy competition mixed with praise at every stage of the game makes it more likely that players will want to get – and stay - involved.
4) We personalised the learning
Personalised avatars place the learner at the heart of the game – and competing against your colleagues avatars makes you forget we’re all working in isolation. You can customise your avatars with branded clothing so that you’re amongst a tribe of people working towards the same objective. We’re all in it together and all that jazz.
5) We set achievable goals
Each competitor is battling the person one place above them in the score table, so their target is always within reach. Rather than playing against someone several places above them from their first game, we focus instead on incremental gains by repeated play, with celebration at each step. This allows for a higher degree of learning.
Do you want to know more? Atomic Habits by James Clear is a step-by-step guide listing every mental string you can pull to create beneficial behaviour patterns. Rest assured, we’re not the only ones who think gamification is a great way to engage employees.
Now that you know how Gamebrain works, all you need to do is attach your own hooks and let the learning commence!