Engaging millennials: Could gamification be an answer?
Millenials like fast, easy, fun. They’re apathetic, informed and extremely autonomous in their approach to life. They’re also everywhere and make up your future workforce. Born in the early 1980s to the early 2000s (give or take), they’re fast becoming a concern for baby boomers because they don’t respond to the world in a traditional sense: they want fun, interesting and exciting; they are used to instant feedback and they won’t stick around for the reasons previous generations have. So how can you keep this generation engaged, productive and happy?
Gamification is proving, in astounding leaps, to be the differentiator for companies and their employees. This process enables businesses to capture and enhance Millenials’ brilliance and ideas, and even lengthen their stay in their organisations.
Creating a collaborative and social space is crucially important and is one of the most unused tools in business at the moment. Millennials are driven by being noticed and heard, thanks to Facebook, Disney channel and MTV offerings. Consider the rate that social media is growing, how both children and adults alike are engrossed in channels such as Whatsapp, Instagram and Twitter.
Wow a lot to take in! We know... so to get you started we want to share three mechanisms we have both used and found extremely valuable:
1. Define your quest
It’s so important to start at the beginning and unpack your challenge well. You can do this by defining a quest statement:
- This is something that you want to achieve. It is a verb-based statement that defines the outcome you want to achieve at the end of your initiative/challenge. Using game vocabulary for Millennials - such as defining a ‘quest’ - is FAR more exciting than a “deliverable or outcome”.
2. Achievements and rankings:
- Achievement provides a sense of accomplishment and pride, and can look any number of different ways, for example a badge could be awarded for a task set or trophies can be displayed on staff’s walls or platforms.
- Ranking is a means by which people can be seen and recognised for their work and for achievements, successes and even new ideas they submit. This provides staff with status because everyone can see each staff member’s ranking. Engagement through the roof - BOOM (Millennials’ word for... can you say more?)
3. Free lunches:
A free lunch is something earned for free from someone else’s efforts. Millenials are notoriously apathetic and disinterested; a ‘free’ reward is a great appetiser to introduce or entice them at random times – especially if they didn’t earn it themselves. This is a short-term mechanism but can be valuable to appeal to a Millenial’s entitled side!
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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. |
