Expanding on my previous Employee Engagement series, I spent some time this past weekend reading and seeing lots about gamification, which -- like most workplace trends -- isn’t necessarily new, but just repackaged. Gamification essentially refers to turning work into some form of game, with trackable levels and “stickers” that employees can achieve, etc. By integrating these game mechanics, the idea is that performance and motivation will be boosted.
When I said it’s not “necessarily new,” what I mean is that we’ve been ranking and comparing employees for generations. It’s just that beforehand, this didn’t necessarily occur on digital platforms and involving stickers and emojis. It came from performance reviews and the olden era of “rank and yank,” which thankfully has mostly (not entirely) faded out.
Gamification itself has become about a $3B industry in the last few years, so clearly some companies are taking note. Mostly above I discussed how it applies to employees, but some companies also point it at customers.
I can see a number of pros and cons to gamification, including:
Pro: It may be increasing learning and engagement for employees
One popular example is a program at Delta called “Ready, Set, Jet.” The company had on-shored their call centers and needed the employees to basically learn four years worth of material in about 12-15 months, so they gamified the process and it largely seemed to work.
I don’t think you can necessarily extrapolate any one company’s success to general terms, though. Gamification is about ranking and comparing, even if it seems “fun” in nature. You need to have a specific type of culture that understands the role of ranking. If you have a highly-individualized, sales-driven culture, I don’t necessarily think this idea would work. But if you have a more fun, collaborative, in-it-together culture, I think this could work. This is partially tied to the next point.
Con: It can seem kind of dumb
For better or worse, most adult work is about being “professional” and “responsible.” We don’t really let adults embrace the idea of play, especially at work, and you can easily argue both sides of that issue. But if your KPIs involve growth or 10-year plans, and somehow that’s being measured in stickers and smiling cats, does it seem a little bit dumb or below the level of professionalism expected from our white-collar workers? Like -- have we Snapchatted corporate HQs?
Pro: It might fit well with the American business environment
Some have argued that gamification is very good for short-term results and motivation, but doesn’t have long-term impact. American business, of course, is large quarterly. If you need a performance uptick in the next three months, it could be a strategy to try.
Con: The research is not there to back it up, really
From a deep dive on gamification that Wharton did comes this quote:
Jonna Koivisto, a researcher at the University of Tampere Game Research Lab in Finland, noted that one of her recent projects has been an attempt to synthesize the literature on gamification. She said that while she has identified over 800 papers on gamification, only about 300 are empirical studies. Furthermore, she noted that for papers with “some actual concrete evidence, like ‘this study has found an effect on this or that,’ the number is very, very few. It’s sad to say, but … we can’t very confidently say much of anything about what works and what doesn’t.” Richard Landers, a professor of industrial and organizational psychology at Old Dominion University, echoed her statement: “What are the research gaps that remain? I would say, basically all of them.”
Should you embrace gamification?
That question is entirely specific to the type of organization you have, as noted above. It’s a $3B industry, so the platforms and software suites around it are there and can be purchased. But I would think it requires a high degree of context to be successful, i.e. explaining to employees why this is being done and done now. If the communication piece wasn’t there, I wouldn’t imagine this would be a very successful roll-out on the employee side, as many might view it as simply another thing to manage -- or another thing used to differentiate their potential compensation