Who said training has to be all drudgery? Gamification in corporate training is the most sought-after concept for leaders looking to enhance their employee learning initiatives.
According to various studies, it has been proved that the gamification industry is expected to grow by 30% over the next four years.
By making training more playful an engaging, companies can see a host of benefits, including:
- Improved employee retention rates
- Heightened excitement around learning opportunities
- Increased employee confidence
- Enhanced employer satisfaction
- Better team collaboration & engagement
We have just named a few benefits; there are a lot more! With so many advantages, who wouldn’t want to invest in gamification in corporate training?
While gamification practices and principles show promising results, many leaders and managers are still unsure how to implement training effectively through gamification.
In this blog, we will discuss some ways of gamification in corporate training to make employees’ learning experiences enjoyable. Further, we will talk about the types of gamification, why it is necessary, and how to gamify training in the organization.
So, let’s jump in!
What Is Gamification?
Gamification is defined as the turning of an activity into a game-like experience. It can be as simple as awarding points for completing tasks or giving employees rewards/ bonuses for hitting specific milestones.
Gamification turns dull training into an interactive & fun experience. Even the stats show that 83% of team members were motivated to put their skills to work after the gamification of training. They felt refreshed and satisfied more than ever.
So, bringing creativity and fun through gamification leads to employee motivation, better retention of information, and much more. Gamification in corporate training also helps engage employees by adding an element of competition. While playing, employees inculcate a sense of competition to perform better, which allows them to reach their highest potential.
Thus, gamification improves employees’ productivity & efficiency in the organization.
Types Of Gamification In Corporate Sector
There are numerous ways to add gamification practices and principles into training. Ranging from designating a top performer of the month to organizing contests around learning – everything leads to employee engagement.
However, here are the top gamification techniques that can be applied in the corporate sector:
- Points & Leaderboards
One of the simplest ways to implement gamification in a corporate training program is by awarding points for completing tasks or hitting milestones in specific courses.
For instance, you can award points for successfully answering daily quizzes or completing a training module.
Moreover, you can also implement an internal leaderboard, so employees can see who’s excelling in learning and who’s not. Finally, gamification can help employees actively participate in the learning process because they’ll want to do well on these assessments and climb the hierarchy ladder.
- Scavenger Hunt
Another way to make training fun and entertaining for employees is through scavenger hunts. In this, employees must complete a specific training or task to get a clue and continue their journey.
Leadership can organize them by division, department, or team, thereby offering the prize to the winner.
You can also use a scavenger hunt to introduce a new training topic or discuss a topic that has already been covered.
Moreover, a scavenger hunt can also lead to team-building. For instance, within a training course, leaders can divide teams into groups to complete tasks and increase internal team engagement & comradery.
- Quizzes
Pop quiz? Who doesn’t like it? Though you may have played such quizzes while you were in school, when it comes to gamified learning, quizzes are a fun way to test employees’ knowledge and gauge competency on specific topics.
Quizzes encourage employees to retain what they have learned during the training and self-evaluate opportunity gaps. These fun quizzes also provide a simple way for employers to evaluate retention. Moreover, if employees continuously score low, more training might be necessary.
- Contests
Another way to introduce gamification in corporate training is through hosting periodic contests.
Contests are one of the popular kinds of gamification because they help incentivize employees to reach their desired goals personally and professionally.
Moreover, leaders can tailor such contests to any training initiative, making them collaborative or individual!
- Role-Playing
An increasingly sought-after method of gamification is role-playing. Employees choose their own avatars and practice real-world consumer scenarios within an entertaining and fictional environment.
The role-playing training method via gamification encourages employees to think quickly, solve typical issues, and get feedback on areas of improvement. Thus, this technique will definitely bring a fun vibe to the workplace.
The Business World: Examples for Gamification
Although you can technically gamify just about anything, yet there are certain areas where it is more effective than others.
So, let us have a look at them!
- Onboarding
New recruits need as much engagement and encouragement as possible. You would also want them to know that the company is an amazing place to work. Then what better way of doing this than gamification?
If working is fun, they will strive to stay, reaching their highest potential. As a result, you will also get the best employees right from the start!
- Employee Engagement
As mentioned earlier, today’s employees wish to be encouraged and engaged. They should feel like they are a part of the company. So, when you are trying to build relationships & connect your teams, it is best to have games as a fun way to engage.
You can opt for games like a scavenger hunt to have an excellent team-building session. This will instigate the employees to work collaboratively and joyfully in the company.
- Sales
Promoting sales development is a critical part of many companies. However, the old methods of sales training are not as effective.
So, through gamification, people can be rewarded with points or stand against each other in sales contests.
Well, let’s look a little back. We will see that companies have been organizing sales contests, competitions, and giveaways to promote their business and encourage the team to improve their skills and generate more profits.
- Leadership
Leadership training is all about creative engagement. After all, everyone teaches by example! If you provide your employees with fun and gamified ways of doing tasks, expanding their skills, and improving their abilities, they will respond simultaneously.
Moreover, employees like the feeling of ‘leveling up’. So, when you gamify their training & practice, you offer them this feeling. As a result, it can help them gain industry-relevant skills and reach their highest potential.
The Bottom Line
Gamification in corporate training can be intimidating for those new to it. However, when you break it down, you will see it’s really about modernizing the traditional approach by making it a little more fun and engaging.
For today’s employees and companies, this is more valuable than ever. Whether you seek ways to engage remote teams, plan for the future, or improve your company culture, gamification is a sure-shot way to reach there.
Check out the areas wherein you can apply gamification and use the techniques mentioned above as well. Tell us in the comments below which strategy helped you in which area!
