What Does Gamification Have to Do With Employee Motivation?

Your success, now and into the future, will depend on how well you and your workforce adapt to using 21st-century skills. The key factors that contribute to a well-oiled organization are collaboration, engagement, and digital literacy to name a few. Rote learning, fact memorization and traditional training methods are outdated, and simply do not work. 

But, as we continue to live in this digital age, simply throwing in new techniques willy nilly without understanding the role they play can be your downfall. Gamification is the application of game mechanics in non-game situations in order to motivate and increase user engagement to either complete tasks or learn new subjects. 

And while gamification has certainly earned its place in popularity, we can see many examples of where and when it doesn’t work. With that being said, it can be helpful to understand the science behind why and how games help improve employee motivation.  

Why and How do Games Motivate?

Games typically incorporate a lot of different mechanics in order to make things more exciting for the user. When you are actively participating in something it automatically becomes more meaningful to you. Players are able to explore and reach goals by making their own choices in order to reach certain goals. Being in control of one’s actions and how the game turns out will also add on another layer of meaning. 

Many of a game’s mechanics are designed to appeal to the psychological needs that are known to be directly connected to motivation in humans. A game designer’s main focus is to get the users hooked enough to make them actively reach for the objectives of the game by completing tasks.

The best-case scenario is the players will get into a flow state where they are fully immersed in the game and repeatedly want to get back to the game on their own when they stop playing. This same goal also applies to learning games, except instead of getting hooked to the game itself, players are hooked on the subjects and learning materials being presented. 

Games motivate by:

• Giving out immediate feedback to the player, helping them achieve a balance between challenge and skill;
• Merging action and awareness which helps completely occupy a player’s attention while they play;
• Fostering deep, sustained concentration;
• Giving the user control of the situation and the freedom to choose their own outcomes; and
• Helping users forget about their self-consciousness and just have fun.

Games incorporate many different methods that help foster a sense of intrinsic motivation. 

Games Help Foster a Sense of Autonomy

Games allow the players to decide what to do in order to reveal different possibilities and outcomes which allows them to improve as they play. Being able to exhibit free will in the choices a user makes gives them a sense of ownership and autonomy over their actions. Feeling that you are in charge and are able to affect the outcomes on your own is important for learning and can be highly motivating. Games help empower the user, and this plays a crucial role in formal learning contexts. 

Feelings of Competency

Games encourage users to feel competent in different ways and gives them space to practice in a safe environment where they can make mistakes. Mastery comes from practice and trial and error, and users will eventually learn through repeated actions. Failing in games is allowed, and is even recommended in order to finetune the process. 

Putting in effort, seeing progress and succeeding are all important components of the process and all contribute to feelings of competency. When you finally succeed at something that you have put effort to practice in, then when you master that skill and receive recognition for it from the game or your community this makes the process more meaningful. It increases user experience and becomes more motivating to people. 

Games also give users the opportunity to show completely new skills or sides of themselves that might have never been shown in a formal setting. This is why they can be a great tool for those who have difficulty performing well. 

Progress and mastery are made visible by using outside game mechanics such as badges, levels and leaderboards. 

Games are Naturally Social

Other than autonomy and feelings of competency, the need to relate to one another is also important in the workplace, or in any situation. We all innately have a need to feel like we belong, or that we are part of something bigger. This feeling is recognized as a key component in fostering intrinsic motivation. Many games help to fulfill this need and make the user feel like they are part of a community, whether that is in a sales team or organization. Connecting one’s actions to something bigger helps make those actions feel significant, and sharing actions with others also helps contribute to the feeling. 

In summary, introducing games will help engage users motivating them through extrinsic motivators. These outside motivators can help make a game enticing, but their ultimate goal is to create feelings of intrinsic motivation. Once users are intrinsically motivated they can reach a flow state and are more likely to learn. 

The game mechanics used in gamification fulfill psychological needs which make users more interested and motivated to participate. These three main needs are relatedness, autonomy and competence. 

Ready to Level Up Your Team?

At 1Huddle, we believe in training that aligns with your life objectives and offers you continuous learning and development. Our employee training and development platform allows you to model product knowledge goal setting through a customized learning journey designed to create a space where employees can be productive and reach their goals and be intrinsically motivated.

1Huddle offers cloud-based employee training programs where you can easily upload and customize your training content for a seamless training experience. All of your employees will have the ability to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. This helps make training engaging and kept up-to-date. You can use our game platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your training next. 

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Request a demo today.