How Gamification and Training Go Together and How It Can Level Up Your Workforce 

Did any of you play educational games growing up? Some of us might have groaned at the idea of mixing education and video games. Yet there are still plenty of us with fond memories of computer games that managed to maybe teach us something as well.

Training games for the workplace also aren’t anything new. However, not every business has fully grasped how to best implement gamification for employee training. Even just using game-design elements can go a long way towards empowering employees to conduct continuous improvement and development. 

But is it worth it to implement gamification in your training? Can game elements do that much? In this blog, we’ll cover some of the top ways gamification goes together perfectly with employee training. Peanut butter and chocolate have nothing on this combo.

What is Gamification?

It’s rare for something involved in modern employee training to be absolutely unaware of gamification. However, there may be a little bit of confusion around the term. You don’t have to have educational video games to use gamification in your employee training.

Gamification refers to the incorporation of typical elements of games. So gamification does include training games for the workplace. It also includes things like giving out points or leaderboards. With gamification mechanics, 1Huddle allows you to give immediate feedback in the context of employee training. Employees can immediately learn if they know or don’t know a piece of information. They know how well they are doing compared to their peers – or compared to their previous performance.

Okay, so why should you care about training games for the workplace? There are a few reasons why gamification and training work so well together. 

#1 Fun

Here’s a weird fact for you. People are more likely to finish tasks when they’re enjoying themselves. Crazy, right?

Just like the designers of those educational games understood that the regular school experience was often pretty dull, designers of gamification apps understand that regular training is often a chore. All work and no play at your business mean your employees will be browsing their other options on LinkedIn in short order. 

#2 Trackable

The point of training is to ensure that your employees have the information and skills they need to complete the day-to-day tasks that your business needs. Simple enough. But just throwing the materials at them is no guarantee that they’re actually absorbing that information. Training without visibility is useless. Even the most dedicated employees will be tempted to check off on training that they didn’t fully understand, just to get it done with. 

#3 Motivational 

Competition is a powerful motivator! If an employee is doing their training in a vacuum, no matter how fun it is, it’s a chore. It’s something they need to get through before doing the work that actually engages them.

At 1Huddle we have a saying “People learn through struggle.” If you aren’t struggling…how do you know where to improve?”. With the challenge of a game, you can strive for excellence and make repetitive tasks seem much fun. 

With training games for the workplace, you can start to incorporate competitive elements like leaderboards to compete with other employees. This turns training into something worth doing for its own sake – for winning. Who doesn’t love to win?

#4 Effective 

Even if you don’t care about anything we have mentioned so far, you probably still want employee training that works, right? Training that doesn’t impart information means wasted time and wasted money.

With a platform that includes gamification like 1Huddle, you can increase the effectiveness of your training by more than 80%. That’s right, that’s 80% more information actually getting across through training. 1Huddle can easily be the MVP of your team’s development and training. If you need that kind of star power in your training, make sure to request a demo!