Gamification is an exciting way to engage and inspire employees!

by Rick DeMarco, Managing Director, West Coast

On July 17, I had the pleasure of making a presentation in Santa Clara, CA on gamification to the Golden Gate Chapter of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), the world’s largest training and development association. Gamification continues to gain momentum and support as a powerful tool used to engage and inspire employees in a fun and exciting way.  And evidence proves that retention is about 10 times greater with gamification than with computer based learning or more traditional learning tools, measured by both the immediate impact and retention over time.

Here are a few highlights from the presentation:

• Gamification is a powerful tool that is one element of a comprehensive employee engagement program. 
• It transcends all phases of the employee engagement process; educating, inspiring, creating excitement, changing behavior, and recognizing and rewarding.
• Gamification works because it caters to both the intrinsic and extrinsic motivators. 
• 80% of gamification efforts fail because of poor design.  In order to develop an effective program, you must know your audience and be very clear about your goals and objectives and metrics used to measure success.

About 50 people attended the session and there were many great questions about the design and development of a gamification program and about the impact it has on employee engagement. Questions ranged from those regarding actual game mechanics to an effective approach to developing a program and activating it. 
 

Examples of some of the great questions include:

• Since we would be sharing a lot of information with both employees and customers, what role does legal play in developing the program?
• How do you manage the customer service demands of front line employees with time spent on education through gamification to drive brand advocacy?
• How do you measure the effectiveness of the program in driving employee engagement and creating brand advocates?

Stay tuned to this blog to get answers to these questions and learn more about how Inward can help you develop and activate an effective gamification program that will educate, inspire, engage, and reward your employees and develop strong brand advocates who create exceptional customer experiences.