Term of the Week: Gamification

Why does a business professional need to know this?

Employee and customer engagement is a huge challenge for many organizations. In a distraction-filled economy, it’s hard to both attract and maintain attention. Gamification techniques and the process of thinking like a game designer can be helpful in a variety of business contexts, from designing products to educating employees to maintaining customer loyalty.

Correctly applying game elements can improve employee engagement. You can start with a specific objective in mind, such as reducing quality-control errors or increasing sales, then apply game elements, such as creating meaningful stories, creating points, providing badges, creating a leaderboard, and fostering collaboration.

One of the big myths about gamification is that it’s about playing games. It is not. It’s about using elements from games but not creating an entire game. One of the best ways to sell gamification is to talk about the high level of engagement that gamification encourages. If you can sell that basic idea, you can then run a pilot study to determine the impact of using gamification within your organization.

Don’t go all in on gamification until you understand how your corporate culture will react to gamified approaches. No two corporate cultures are the same, so a one-size-fits-all approach won’t work. Gamification needs to be carefully planned and executed to be successful.