Gamification is not only for learning and development. Aside from making your training programs successful, you can also use game principles and techniques in another aspect of your organization: human resources. Gamification in HR can help make the work of your employees more enjoyable, creative, and efficient. But how? Here are 5 things you can do to be gamified!
Gamification in HR: 5 Things You Can Do To Be Gamified
First of all, strategize
A famous quote goes like this, “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail”. And this saying stays true to this day. To make gamification in HR possible, you first have to strategize. What is it that you want to do? How are you going to do it? What do you need for it to be done? Come up with a concrete plan for your gamification. Think through all of the phases of your strategy, even the possible roadblocks that you’ll encounter. You also have to make sure that your gamification strategies are aligned with your business goals.
Understand what your employees want
In the simplest terms, gamification is supposed to make things fun. However, different people have varying definitions of the word “fun”. And since the success and failure of your strategies depend on your employees, it’s important that you understand what they want.
One of the key aspects of gamification is providing extrinsic motivation—that is, motivating an individual through the use of external factors such as rewards, recognition, or competition. When you understand what your employees want, you can better know what their extrinsic (and intrinsic) motivators are. Thus, you can better plan what gamification techniques are you going to implement that will surely engage them.
Get executive buy-in
Before you start implementing your gamification strategies, make sure that you have the support of the management. Make sure that your leadership team knows everything about your plans—the initiative, the objectives, and the processes—and that you set your expectations clearly. Aside from these, they also have to approve it. How do you expect the other employees to follow if they can’t see their leaders complying?
Execute and engage
Now, it’s time for you to execute and engage your employees! Disseminate instructions clearly to every person involved, especially those who have specific roles for monitoring and implementing your gamification programs. If problems occur, be open to communication. Pay attention to your employees’ reactions to your strategies. Are they truly engaged or are they just being forced?
Constantly monitor and evaluate
Now that you have your gamification program running, don’t just forget it. Frequently monitor and evaluate your strategies. What works? What doesn’t? Did the techniques you implemented truly work according to your objective? You can also watch out for rooms for improvement. Just because something isn’t broken doesn’t mean that you have to leave it. If you don’t need to fix it, why not tweak it so that you could get better results?
Gamification in HR can be a powerful tool for your organization. Listed above are just a few considerations for you before and after a gamification program to ensure that you achieve what you want to achieve.
