TEHRAN (Bazaar) –Ahsen Qazi,Masters in Human Resource Management has sent an article to Bazaar news agency about affect of gamification on bussiness.
Ahsen Qazi*- Bazaar: Work is notoriously known for being a boring task that we have to do to survive in this world. However, who says this can’t change? Through work gamification we can bring engagement and desire back into the workplace.
Work environment plays a vital role in an employee’s productivity. The more you improve and take care of your work atmosphere, your productivity increases in proportion.
GOOGLE’S AND VIRGIN’S FUN CULTURE
A major contributor to Google's unique work environment is all the amazing incentives the "Googolplex” has to offer. More than 64,000 Google employees can take advantage of perks like free gourmet meals, laundry and fitness facilities, generous paid parental leave and on-site childcare.
Google's employee perks are a massive popularity point for the company. But the most amazing thing this one of the best companies in the world provides is the recreation and gaming facility to its employees.
During the last few years more and more of the world’s best companies are transforming their work environment with fun activities. The need for staying enthusiastic and connected to your work has become more challenging after the global Covid-19 pandemic hit and when you are working from home it’s really tough to stay focused and attached without any solid attraction to your work.
One of the leading group of companies is Richard Branson’s Virgin Group. In a wonderful story published in Forbes, describing how the Virgin Group was voted one of the top seven best companies to work for in LinkedIn’s top companies list, it was evidently explained that the lofty position comes as no surprise to those familiar with the company. Indeed, Sir Richard Branson himself said that by taking care of employees at Virgin, everything else will take care of itself and with a net worth of approximately $5 billion, it’s hard to argue with him.
Sir Richard Branson has built his global business empire on his unique principles and ethics. While the common adage, “The customer is always right,” is important, Sir Richard follows his own beliefs. He is quoted as saying,
“Clients do not come first. Employees come first. If you take care of your employees, they will take care of the clients.”
A positive culture with fun filled challenges creates the kind of openness to failure and willingness to experiment that sits at the heart of the lean culture made famous by Toyota in manufacturing, but is rare in the irregular service-driven world typified by Google, Virgin and Apple and other great companies these days.
WHAT IS WORK GAMIFICATION?
According to a Gallup world study, only 20% of the global workforce is engaged. This means that the majority of the work force is disengaged and not performing to their full potential. A smart and proven way to improve performance is by gamifying the work processes. Gamification can also be used to enhance the learning process.
Gamification is a process by which you can gamify your work to enhance desire to complete projects. This process accelerates organizational performance. By using “Work Gamification” we will feel less stress and more engagement.
Sometimes work gets boring and introducing the concept of fun at work is a useful tool in enhancing performance. You can have fun at work and also improve your performance by using Work Gamification.
This concept is new and revolutionary, but it works! It guarantees improved performance, engagement, and is a win-win model to be adopted in your organizational work processes.
BENEFITS OF WORK GAMIFICATION
Work Gamification a win-win model for the organization and the employees. The organization gets higher quality of work and the employees start to enjoy their work more. There is a tremendous incentive for the employees to enhance performance and thus generate more revenue for the company. No one loses by trying out work gamification methods.
WHY SHOULD WE GAMIFY WORK?
Gamification of work isn’t just a theory. We apply engagement psychology to work gamification by understanding the motivating factors that make work fun, understanding the brain’s genetic clarity when completing processes, and how they are currently affecting people actions.
How Attitudes and competencies can also be gamified. You can actually become more creative through gamification. You can eventually learn and apply creative problem solving to identify gamification opportunities.
EXAMPLE OF WORK GAMIFICATION
You do remember how our parents at home and especially our teachers at school made education fun by using different techniques, right? And we used to like practicing our lessons the same way and compete against our peers to earn the goodwill of our teachers and parents.Well, times do change, but the habits don’t.As humans, we are more inclined towards doing things that satisfy our thirst for challenges to excel and out-do the rest.The same inclination is also prevalent in today’s work culture.Employees like to deal with workplace challenges and win them. The trick is how you give them those challenges.And hence the employers, in order to make problem-solving more fun, have resorted to the concept of mixing gaming elements with work to improve employee engagement and productivity.
A large chunk of today’s workforce comprises of millennial workers. And one thing which sets them apart here is they require instant recognition for their work and they love gaming. Adopting a gamification platform that allows instant rewards and recognition on completion of tasks helps a lot in increasing the level of engagement and productivity of these employees at work.
Gamification helps employers bring a healthy transformation to their businesses as it gives a meaning to the tasks carried out by the employees.
If you’re wondering how? Here’s an example.
Imagine you and your team have been asked to sort and arrange some important documents and files.
Seems tedious and boring. But what if we view the same task as a game or transform it into one?
Like within a given time frame the first employee or team to complete the task advances to the next level which may comprise of subsequent challenges with certain rewards for completing the task. Or based on the time needed to complete the task, you can allocate points for rewarding the employees and motivate the others to do the same.
Sounds convincing, doesn’t it?
FEEDBACK MECHANICS - KEY TO SUCCESSFUL GAMIFICATION
For any project to be successful, the feedback mechanism needs to be defined and used correctly. For success in Gamification the key is accurate and on the spot feedback. If the feedback takes a long time, people will lose interest and the Gamification process is likely to be less effective. The reward for accomplishing a task should not be delayed unnecessarily as the players are likely to lose interest if the reward process takes far too long. Generally, in an organizational context positive contribution should be rewarded in few days at most, as waiting for weeks to reward achievements will defeat the aim of Gamification as most of the emotions and context is lost.
Once a player receives points for a useful contribution in a game context, the player is likely to feel more engaged to the game. In the same way once an employee receives points for completing a task for exhibiting behaviour in a Gamified workplace, the process is likely to bring about more engagement. The feedback in Gamification can be in the form of points, badges, leader boards and performance graphs.
HAVE FUN AND ACHIEVE MORE
Work can be notoriously boring task for many individuals. However, we can change this by employing work gamification in our work processes. By using work gamification we can enhance the level of engagement and commitment in the employees.
The playground is a classic example of game elements, in which the players are challenged to do more to get better results, the feedback is instant and the environment is safe.
If we introduce the same game element of fun from the workplace to the work processes in a controlled manner we can enhance performance and have better levels of engagement.
POSITIVE FEEDBACK / REWARDS
One of the easiest and commonly used ways to gamify work processes is by using points, leader boards, badges and rewards. Points can be awarded for completing small but meaningful tasks to achieve the bigger goal for the company. Leader boards provide instant feedback to enhance motivation for competing team members. Leader boards can be maintained for a weekly time period, so that all members get a fair chance of getting to the top of the leader board.
CONCLUSION
In an organizational context positive contribution should be rewarded immediately at most, as waiting for weeks to reward achievements will defeat the aim of Gamification as most of the emotions and context is lost. Positive feedback and reward is one of the easiest and commonly used ways to gamify work processes, by using points, leader boards, badges and rewards. Different levels and stages can also be employed in combination with points, leader boards, and badges to acknowledge greater levels of achievement.
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* Ahsen Qazi graduated from Middlesex University London with a Masters in Human Resource Management. He also did M.Phil. In Management Sciences from National Defence University, Islamabad. He is author of the two books book “Chinese Entrepreneurship model a benchmark for Pakistan” and “Business Success”. Motivational and leadership speaker, Work Gamification certified by “Directive Communication International (DCI)”, ranked 8th in World in leadership, Accredited by the American Institute of Business Psychology.He has 20 years of experience in training, Leadership, motivation and Human Resource management. Featured speaker at Kula Lampur Business Conference - KLIBEL, in addition he has delivered talks at NU-Fast-Islamabad, National Defence University (NDU) Islamabad and is also a featured speaker on Roze TV on Economy and Business.
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