What makes gamification so exciting and unique?
What makes gamification so stimulating and distinctive in South Africa at the moment is its air of mystery and intrigue. The very idea of games, fun and laughter is definitely not synonymous with the hard and serious space of work and business. This makes what we want to share with you so great because not only does it link work and play but it has something to offer every single person, no matter their age, station or Industry. So here we go!
Gamification is not just a pretty face; it is measurable and has big roots in psychology, motivational principles and years of international research and proven results.
And so to prove our point, let us show you what happened when we gamified a four-day training programme in a major SA corporate environment:
- Our aim was to transform an innovative four-day training programme. The company wanted to increase the completion rate of the pre-course work as well as engagement during training.
- Leveraging off the psychology of optimal experience model and a model that we have developed, we applied three gamification mechanisms for the beginning of the training programme:
- Progression: Your ability to master your current challenge and then gear up to your next level of mastery.
- Vanity: Items or artefacts that show your status in the business, and
- Leaderboards: These show your ranking in relation to those nearby.
- Although extremely new and unusual for a corporate environment, the company’s employees started to get it straight away!
- On boarding (the process by which we orientated our players to the specific level they were required to master) was created to familiarise the learners with the case study and course requirements. The purpose of this was to ensure the learners arrived already prepared with knowledge and expectations of the case study requirements, cutting down the time they would need to familiarise themselves with it during training, and simultaneously increasing productivity during learning.
A leaderboard, badges and constant feedback were provided during the training course to drive specific engagement outcomes and to achieve the tasks and activities required for the training. This drove the energy of the training course and created tremendous camaraderie and fun, achieving a 98% programme attendance.
These sessions were rolled out to groups of employees and each group’s leaderboard was visible to previous groups and was published on the company intranet. This increased the sense of competition and the learners not only completed the required coursework, but the:
- “Competitor” (players who act ON people) were rewarded to “like” comments and taunt others to catch up with where they were, and
- “Collaborators” (players who interact WITH people who were rewarded for encouraging and building a safe “social” space for all who attended.
This was important for the programme as these were the key points to enhance the “quest” and provide better opportunities to get ahead.
During the training, we were careful to provide an opportunity for everyone to engage in a space they felt comfortable:
- This motivated and excited them as they learned (or played the game) in the area they felt most comfortable.
The pre-course work completion increased from between 12 and 13% to 90%!
And this was all thanks to the simple gamification techniques we employed.
It was fascinating to experience how intrigue and excitement coupled with progress and immediate feedback directly impact the desire of the learner/s to gain more knowledge, brainstorm more ideas, focus more on the content of the programme, encourage their teams, challenge the other teams and complete the case studies through having FUN.
Through the gamification mechanisms used, we had many learners change their schedules to remain ON training as a common trend in corporates is for learners to find ways to get OFF training. One learner even commented: “I cancelled all my afternoon appointments, I usually make when I attend training, because I couldn’t bear to miss it!”
This led the company to express interest in gamifying the next phase of the training as well as new courses. And so the journey continues...
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Darryn and Bronwyn (husband and wife team) are energised, passionate and excited to teach gamification in a practical and real way, using fun, to link business, education and life. Combined with 19 years of international and national organisational development, behaviour and change management expertise, they love to share and enable business growth into new and uncharted territories. Come and join their adventure! Visit their website at http://p4d.co.za. |
