What Do Pokemon Go and Fitbit Have to Do with Your Business? Think: Gamification

In the past couple of years, smartphone and tablet users have become a real walking hazard. Everywhere you turn your head, you see people engrossed in mobile activities, seemingly unaware of their surroundings. And if you were to take a peek at these folks’ screens, chances are you’d seem them fiddling around with their Fitbit or other fitness tracker, or perhaps even hunting down a rare Pikachu on Pokemon Go. Whether they’re trying to hit a target step count for the day or are attempting to train up an army of pocket monsters, one thing’s for sure: these people are motivated by very specific goals and are persistently working to achieve them. Wouldn’t you love to see that kind of enthusiasm and dedication in the workplace? This is precisely the aim of gamification. 

Gamification At-A-Glance

Okay, so what is gamification, exactly? Many business owners initially shy away from the gamification concept because they get hung up on the word “game”. They picture their employees playing silly video games all day and losing out on productivity. In reality, gamification isn’t a game at all. Instead, gamification employs game mechanics as a means of motivating and inspiring your team to achieve peak performance. Just as in the case of fitness trackers and Pokemon Go, users will be able to see the real-time implications of their efforts. Progress bars, completion badges, “personal best” records or trophies, and other mechanics can be employed to keep your staff excited about what they’re doing and making steady progress.

According to a recent TalentLMS survey, some of the most popular gaming mechanics for workplace gamification include:

• progressing to different levels (30%)
• points/scores (27%)
• real-time feedback on performance (26%)
• progress bars (25%)
• activity feeds (24%)

By making use of these, you’ll see a shift in the way your employees work. Instead of burning a prescribed amount of calories per day, your team might be attempting to complete a specific number of tasks. Instead of catching all the Pokemon monsters, your staff will be striving to pick up as many completion badges as possible — “gotta catch ’em all!”
Why Employees Love Gamification

Maybe your company holds weekly, bi-weekly, monthly, or even quarterly meetings to discuss sales targets and performance metrics, but that’s just not enough. Seeing raw data for the entire sales team or hearing a manager preach about how quotas are down doesn’t equip individuals with the tools they need to visualize opportunities for growth in real-time, nor does it show them, specifically, how and where they can improve their performance at any given time. When playing Pokemon Go, users can see which monsters are nearby, allowing them to focus on the next task ahead of them, essentially enabling them to “play smarter, not harder”. When tracking performance with a fitness app, users can challenge themselves to beat their best mile time because they can keep track of how they’re performing right now vs. previous attempts. In the same way, gamification gives employees a better sense of what tasks should be conquered next and how they can best get the work done. It takes all of the thinking out of accomplishing work goals while making the job much more engaging and a whole lot more fun!

Why You’ll Love Gamification 

If you’re wondering what’s in it for you, you’re not going to be disappointed. In addition to your employees receiving real-time feedback on their work performance, you’ll also enjoy the ability to review accurate, up-to-date results so that you’re current with what’s going on inside your business, to the minute. Gamification also makes it much easier for you to be fair and objective when evaluating your employees. Having access to performance statistics that have been carefully tracked over time will help you make better decisions when it’s time for employee reviews. On top of everything else, gamification constantly rewards and reinforces desirable behaviors within the workplace for improved consistency. 

Interested in learning more about gamification and how it’s changing modern business operations? Give the pros at Uncommon Solutions a call today.