In today’s modern world, where an individual’s creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship are required in their job, it is very important to keep the employee engaged and motivated at all times. This contrasts with most of the previous ways of employment, where the employees were told what to do and the employees were required to perform the task as per the instructions. At these times where the requirement for the employees to be engaged is at all-time high, the engagement survey from Gallup shows an opposite story.

According to the Gallup’s employee engagement survey conducted in 2013, only 13% of the workforce is actively engaged at workplace. Engagement is defined as – the employees are engaged if they are psychologically aligned with the organization goals and are willing to make positive contribution towards the goal. Worst of all 24% of the employees are actively disengaged, which means that they are not satisfied, unproductive and do not respond to the existing methods of productivity improvement, which involves traditional Performance management systems, incentives, traditional classroom-based trainings etc. 

Games on the other hand enjoy a huge level of participation and fan fallowing among its users. Video games are becoming increasingly complex, detailed, and compelling to a growing audience of players. With better graphics, more realistic characters, and greater strategic challenges, it’s not surprising that players would rather play the latest video game than hang out with friends, play sports, or even watch television. According to the recent Reuter’s survey, ESA, TED / Jane McGonigal and other sources –

• Online revenue, including digital delivery, subscriptions, Facebook games: $24 billion, up from $21 billion in 2012
• Activision Blizzard Annual revenue: $4.99 billion Top franchises: “Call of Duty” and “World of Warcraft”
• China: 34% increase in games revenue (2012), 30 years is the average age of players, 45% of the gamers are female
• 3 billion hours per week playing video games in the planet

Owing to this stark contrast of engagement between games and workplace, Gamification provides a way to efficiently engage employees at workplace using game elements which have proven to be engaging and often addictive. Gamification is not only about playful activities. Though video games and Gamification employs game mechanics at their core but they both have very different objectives.

Owing to this stark contrast of engagement between games and workplace, Gamification provides a way to efficiently engage employees at workplace using game elements which have proven to be engaging and often addictive. Gamification is not only about playful activities. Though video games and Gamification employs game mechanics at their core but they both have very different objectives. 

Gamification engages players on an emotional level, motivates them through intrinsic and extrinsic motivators to change behaviours sustainably, develops skills and drives innovation. Following are some of the areas where Gamification can be implemented at work to improve engagement.

• Repetitive and meticulous tasks – Gamification provides a way to incentivize and celebrate small victories in day to day life of the employees, who perform repetitive tasks which are otherwise boring. Due to the nature of these tasks any mistake of the employee creates rework which is the worst form of waste in any lean and efficient process
• Feedback and recognition – Employees are encouraged to submit feedback of the performance of other employees as well as to recognize the performance of peers going beyond their job description on a Gamified platform. This creates an environment of motivation among the employees at workplace
• Learning at work – As the products keep on getting complex the employees are required to keep in pace with the knowledge of the products, about the knowledge of the market as well as about the knowledge of new processes introduced at workplace. There is limited to no self-motivation for an employee to keep himself up-to-date with the latest information. Gamification can also engage employees in consuming this new information in a gamified way