How to use gamification to improve employee engagement

What is gamification in employee training?

Gamification is the practice of placing the principles of gameplay into a traditionally non-game scenario. It can be utilised within the workplace to increase employee engagement, provide something exciting to participate in and ultimately have a positive impact on productivity. Depending on the purpose of the content, it can be available as an integrated part of an LMS system or a standalone app.

Offering gamification to improve employee engagement means information is more likely to stick due to the repetitive nature of the gameplay and the more casual, fun elements involved that don’t mean sitting through a corporate presentation.

Using Gamification in employee training

Although gamification in employee training turns organisational content into a game – it by no means devalues or discredits the information.

There are various ways to use gamification to improve employee engagement within a work environment to offer support to learners. It depends on the requirements set out by the company as to the purpose of the gamification but a few include:

• employee training to upskill or move employees into different roles
• feeding important company information to new hires who are going through the onboarding process
• sharing company values and updates.

With gamified learning encouraging a better experience, increased engagement with training material and increased recall of information, many benefits for employees also have a strong positive impact for the organisation as a whole.

1. A workforce that is happier to learn

When faced with interactive quizzes and incentivised competition based learning, employees are more productive, leading to them engaging further with the content they are presented with.

This will likely encourage them to seek out and participate in additional training materials, knowing that they will find enjoyment within it.

2. Learning targets are met

Whist gamified learning offers a fun experience, it is important to remember that the specific information embedded within the content is essential for employees to learn.

This could be for company culture and onboarding, updates for sales representatives or refreshing safety procedures.

Providing the essential information in a fun and interactive way will ensure that the tasks not only get completed, but that they are done so with enthusiasm. In turn, training targets are more likely to consistently be met on time.

3. Enhances teamwork

Gamification encourages engagement with colleagues, which can build strong and positive working relationships in a natural way. With many people working from home or remotely these days, it is essential that colleagues can discuss work topics but also have fun together in order to form genuine connections.

Gamified learning combines the two with ease.

4. A knowledgeable and able workforce

This leads us to what must be the ultimate organisational focus – a workforce made up of people with the knowledge, skills and commitment to consistently perform their roles to the highest level.

Giving them the tools they need to be able to work at peak performance ensures they can both do their job well and strive to learn more.

Gamification of learning, when used properly, can produce a wealth of benefits for both your learners and your organisation. This approach to learning should allow for the creation of meaningful content, rather than introduced just to make training and development more engaging for the sake of it. Gamified learning gives targets, and these targets give purpose.