You probably come across gamification in some form every day.
Think about it: have you ever collected stamps at a coffee shop? Accumulated airline points? Completed a survey to be entered into a prize draw?
While the term gained popularity in the early 2000s, the concept of gamification has been around since the start of the 20th century, when, for example, Boy Scouts could earn badges and ranks based on the activities they undertook.
More recently, gamification has been picked up by employers to help incentivize employees. Uber uses driver gamification to increase retention. Dominos uses it to drive recruitment. Construction giant Norconsult uses it to streamline its processes.
With more and more content out there on the benefits of gamification - take gamification expert Yu-kai Chou’s list of 90+ gamification ROI statistics, for example - it’s a no-brainer to have gamification features on your checklist before making a new software investment.
…or, is it?
What benefit does gamification provide from a learning science perspective? Will it really make an impact on your workforce?
As Chou himself asks in his book, Actionable Gamification: Beyond Points, Badges and Leaderboards, ‘Does it actually create value and return measurable results, or is it just a new gimmicky fad without lasting impact?’
In this blog post, we’re going to find out just how effective gamification is for businesses looking to train their workforces. If you want to skip ahead, we’ll be covering:
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If you're ready, let's dive in.
First things first, a quick definition. Gamification is the use of game-like features in a non-game context, with the aim of increasing motivation and engagement.
In a learning context, this could look like points, badges, leaderboard status, and rewards awarded for completing certain behaviors like completing lessons, consistency, achieving high quiz scores, or certain milestones.
Let’s take a look at an example.
Have you heard of Uber Pro? If not, it’s one of the platform economy’s most famous loyalty programs, introduced by - you guessed it - Uber to retain its workforce.
Uber employs driver gamification by allowing its workers to earn points with every trip. The more points a driver gains, the more rewards they unlock. Drivers are also assigned a level based on the number of points they have: they start at blue, before moving to gold once they’ve hit 600 points, platinum once they hit 1,200 points, and diamond once they hit 1,800 points.
By motivating drivers to make more trips, Uber aims to achieve worker loyalty - a scarce commodity in the platform economy, with some businesses reporting a churn rate of 500% a year.
Let’s dig a little deeper. Why is gamification beneficial when it comes to training a workforce?
Well, playing games increases the levels of dopamine - the chemical that makes us feel good - in our brains. The more dopamine we experience, the more likely we are to return to the activity that triggered the dopamine release - particularly useful for an initiative that requires regular, sustained interaction like training.
By encouraging the learner to interact with the content, retention rates and completion rates increase - the benefits of which include improved workforce performance, engaged and happier employees, and a safer working environment.
The benefits of gamification are appealing, but that doesn’t mean every business should rush to implement it wherever possible. Bad gamification - when the design of the initiative is ill-thought-out or poorly executed - can destroy the learning experience just as much as good gamification can aid it.
For example, if you lean too heavily on gamification, it becomes more about the game or points scoring than the learning. With any game, there’s a risk of getting bored - and gaining a negative association with the content as a result.
Scott Nicholson, Associate Professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies and Director at Because Play Matters, also notes that gamification must be carefully implemented. In his paper A Recipe for Meaningful Gamification he warns against the over-usage of rewards:
Reward systems do work as long as the rewards keep coming. When the rewards stop, however, the behavior will likely stop also unless the subject has found some other reason to continue the behavior.
So, why does gamification make such an impact either way? The answer lies in the concepts of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.
If a worker is extrinsically motivated to engage in a task, they’re doing so because they hope to gain a reward (like points or a financial prize) or because they want to avoid a punishment (like losing points or dropping down a level). The motivation is entirely dependent on external sources.
Intrinsic motivation is the opposite. If a worker is intrinsically motivated to do something, they are because it fulfills them: maybe they find it enjoyable, or maybe the outcome of the task is attractive to them.
Scott Nicholson notes that ‘performing tasks for intrinsic reasons puts someone in a more healthy mental state than performing tasks for extrinsic rewards’. In other words, to maximize the long-term effectiveness of gamification when it comes to training, you need to generate intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation.
Next up, let’s take a look at what a meaningful gamification initiative looks like.
Take a step back for a minute. The first thing we want to do when designing a meaningful gamification experience is to connect it to a business's own motivations.
The best examples of gamification come from the need to solve a problem. If a problem is clear, so are the behaviors to track and reward. For example:
Let’s take a closer look at these behaviors: why you might want to track and reward them and how to do it.
Rewarding completion significantly increases motivation, which makes sure learners are progressing through the material.
How: award points, badges, or certificates for completing modules or courses.
Gamified learning environments that foster active participation - when learners have to engage with the lesson, rather than absorbing passively - have been shown to improve knowledge retention and engagement.
How: reward participation in discussions, forums, and collaborative projects with points or badges.
You want to build learning habits and keep engagement consistent, as regular interaction with learning material is linked to better retention and understanding.
How: offer rewards for logging in regularly, such as streaks or daily bonuses.
Milestone rewards help maintain learner motivation and provide a sense of accomplishment, by recognizing their progress.
How: set and reward the achievement of key milestones such as reaching a certain score, completing a series of tasks, or mastering a skill.
Rewarding workers for successfully applying what they’ve learned in real-world scenarios reinforces learning and improves retention.
How: reward learners for successfully applying knowledge in practical settings (for example, completing a new task after finishing a lesson on how to do it) or through simulations and quizzes.
Next up, we’re going to take a look at two common characteristics of gamification - leaderboards and badges & points. We’ll dive into their positives and negatives, and what their best use cases are when it comes to training.
Some research supports the effectiveness of leaderboards in increasing motivation, engagement, and performance in workplace training. However, a few important factors will contribute to their success - or lack of.
Leaderboards are an effective way of engaging employees by making their progress visible and giving them a goal to focus on. They provide immediate feedback and public recognition, which can give a sense of accomplishment and encourage continuous improvement. They’re also a great mechanism for creating accountability, as employees can see how their performance compares to others’.
On the other hand, leaderboards can encourage unhealthy competition or stress if not managed properly - workers might even become unwilling to engage through fear of losing or being seen to lose. They might also not engage if the size of the group is too large and the prize seems too unattainable. Some users report that a leaderboard is more effective in the short-term, and needs to be continuously updated to have long-term impact.
Because of this, we’d recommend introducing leaderboards for a short time frame, to solve a problem like a low initial engagement with training.
If you’d like to implement the practice for longer, make sure you focus on regularly updating it, introducing rewards to balance out any effects of negative competition, and basing it on inclusive and fair metrics.
Badges and points have plenty of positives when it comes to improving worker training. They provide instant gratification which can be incredibly motivating, they provide an opportunity for the recipient to boost their professional credibility, and they can also represent skills and competencies acquired - which may be useful for your promotion and pay increase strategy.
They are, however, very reward-focused. As we know, this can lead to short-term engagement that might be misaligned with learning. For example, employees might focus on easier tasks that offer more points rather than more challenging tasks that are critical for their development.
To get long-term value out of badges and points, they need to be matched to a meaningful reward like progression, a showcase of skills, or a physical reward - or, as with leaderboards, they can be used to drive a short-term result if needed.
Treat gamification as a tick-box exercise, and you’ll have spent a lot of money on features with no lasting impact - or, even worse, on features that have a negative impact on your employee’s learning experience.
If introduced well, and, crucially, only when you actually need it, gamification can be an effective way of engaging your workforce with your training program.
Our final take? Treat gamification carefully, and you’ll reap the rewards.
Want to learn what goes into an impactful employee training program? Find out how frontline training provider eduMe (that’s us!) helped client Uber retain its drivers with Uber Pro.