The practice of gamifying the workplace has been a part of the business world for decades, but as technology has advanced so has the rise in the number of companies using gamification tactics.
Gamification is a technique introducing elements of game playing such as competition and point scoring to motivate employees. It can be used for setting and meeting targets, facilitating training, and continuously educating employees.
By adopting gamification into the workplace, brands are more likely to see lower rates of turnover, improved productivity, and better online reviews. In fact, according to A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification, gamification can also support “user engagement and enhance positive patterns in service use, such as increasing user activity, social interaction, or quality and productivity of actions“.
In order to highlight the importance of gamification, we’ve compiled the top 3 benefits as to why you should be incorporating gamification into your business:
Engage and Motivate Team Members
Employee engagement is a key contributor to a business’s economic performance.
According to a Gartner study, 70% of business transformation efforts fail due to a lack of engagement. This is because business owners struggle with identifying what truly engages employees. They may offer raises or perks such as catered lunches and foosball tables but these aren’t necessarily what employees want from their workplace.
With gamification integrated into the workplace the job itself becomes a fun and enjoyable experience. Team members can compete with one another to achieve a higher customer service ranking which leads to an increase in engagement through friendly competition.
With a platform like Loop Pulse™ you can actively engage your team members through gamification in real-time. With it, customers have the ability to rank their experience on an in-store kiosk or through their mobile devices, instantly giving team members visibility into their performance. They can then adjust their behavior accordingly making for a better customer service experience and motivating them to do better the next time.
For instance, if a customer has to wait a long period of time to receive their food order they can rank that experience poorly on the Loop Pusle™ kiosk. The ranking will then appear at the back of house in the restaurant for the team members to see. Once acknowledged they can make immediate adjustments to raise the standard for the next customer, engaging the team while also educating them on customer preference.
Recognize and Reward Employees
Employees want to be recognized for the hard work they put into a company and gamification is a great option to do that.
With recognition from gamification, you give team members an incentive to not only do their work but do it well. Through perks or recognition you motivate them by celebrating their accomplishments, and when combined with competition, makes it that much more rewarding for team members.
With a platform like Loop Pulse™ management can see where team members are excelling and where they are falling behind in terms of service quality. With this visibility, management can incentivize top performers and encourage friendly competition between locations to keep team members focused on service quality. Providing recognition and reward not only shows your team members that you value their dedication but also increases the quality of the work that they produce.
Improve Workplace Efficiency
By gamifying the experience using Loop Pulse™ – combined with the team member facing scoreboards – employees generate a stronger urgency to do better each time a new customer comes in and to optimize operations. This leads to greater efficiency and ongoing optimizing of the customer experience.
Gamification’s challenges your team members and shows management where improvements are needed. With a platform like Loop®, team members have real-time visibility into their performance. Real-time customer feedback scores keep your front-line team aware of key operational metric performance, driving them to resolve issues and improve performance. In addition to team member awareness, management can also access mobile reporting dashboards, graphical reports, and a mounted scoreboard display to drive insights, improve service quality, and achieve more efficient operations.
Gamification adoption rates are growing with its proven success. According to Pew Research Center, 53 percent of technology stakeholders say that by 2020, the use of gamification will be widespread, meaning more and more businesses will look to gamifying the workplace to increase capital. In order to see lower rates of turnover, improved productivity and better online reviews, gamification is definitely a practice you should consider.
What are some ways you could incorporate gamification in the workplace? Let us know in the comments, or on social media: LinkedIn | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram.
