Sam Caucci
It might seem like the more you discover about gamification, the more questions you have about what it is and what it is used for. If that’s the case, you might be looking for a place to get all of the basic answers about gamification. At 1Huddle, we are constantly researching and sharing our findings on gamification so we can stay at the top of our industry.
Below you will find out why more companies than ever are gravitating towards gamification as a strategy to help them enhance their business.
After reading this guide, you will be able to establish, implement and improve gamification within your organization to help your team learn, train and level up.
At its core, gamification is the use of game design elements and principles in non-game situations such as employee training or onboarding to help foster better engagement.
Organizations often use gamification as a strategy to help them train, recruit, evaluate and increase productivity.
The point of using gamification strategies is to help increase levels of motivation and engagement with the training content. Especially for tasks that are not typically enjoyable, like safety or compliance training modules. Gamification can be used as a tool to help motivate and engage the user so that you have better learning and retention rates.
Some examples of the game mechanics used in gamification include:
A user who completes the task will get a reward. For example, badges or points.
Users can increase their level or rank through the completion of activities. Leaderboards can be utilized to show who is “first place” and this can inspire other users to work harder to compete.
Users can be paired or grouped to collaborate on solving problems, completing activities or achieving another objective.
Quizzes can be used throughout the process as tools for repetition, as well as to test knowledge and reward users.
Points and badges are examples of some useful rewards. Other rewards can include gift cards or coupons. Rewards help to increase motivation and keep engagement high among users.
Utilizing the right gamification mechanics for your organization’s needs is key when tapping into your team’s intrinsic motivation to become more skilled. At the same time it’s important to offer extrinsic motivation like rewards or points to increase motivation and engagement further.
While gamification certainly uses the most cutting-edge technology in its delivery, the reason it is so effective is that it speaks to our human psychology. Gamification appeals to our human needs and human instinct.
In particular, gamification will tend to appeal to the following human needs:
Gamification has been brought into almost every single aspect of life. This can be through training simulations at the workplace and you can even find gamification techniques used in schools. Gamification is also used during the onboarding process as a helpful way to assess an applicant’s suitability through the use of games that can simulate the work environment of the company.
Learn more about what gamification looks like when brought into the training world.
Or, take a look at these other applications for gamification:
As you probably noticed, there are many benefits to using gamification to spruce up your employee training efforts in the workplace. Not only will gamification help you boost productivity and morale, but it also has many benefits when it comes to learning, such as:
Learn more about the benefits of gamification and take a look at the applications of gamification in the business world.
Here are some of the most frequently asked questions about gamification.
The short answer is ‘no’. Gamification can be used in many applications. According to its definition, you can include game elements in non-game settings. This means you can use gamification for learning, marketing, advertising, business services and more.
When participating in game-based learning, the game is part of the learning process. It is used in a course, model or topic in order to meet a specified learning objective. The game’s focus is to help learners understand a concept, learn a skill, or to check understanding through assessment. The content to be learned is presented as a game, for example through simulation, competition, conflict, etc.
Gamification is used at a systemic level where the learning management system is designed as a game. With this purpose, game elements will be used in the form of badges, awards, or achievements to be collected as a result of the user completing a learning task.
Read our recent blog post Game-Based Learning vs. Gamification to learn more.
The short answer is, it depends.
While game mechanics are designed to increase levels of motivation and engagement, it will also depend on the design of the game. Well-designed games are able to teach content very effectively. Games that don’t just rely on extrinsic rewards but instead focus on the genuine enjoyment of the learning experience are valuable assets during employee training or onboarding.
Learn more in our recent article which goes into more detail about how games are great tools for helping you learn.
Yes, you can read more about this gamification framework created by Taiwanese entrepreneur Yu-Kai Chou who helped pioneer gamification. He developed this framework to analyze and build strategies around various systems which make games enjoyable.
Yes, guidelines were created by a game designer named May Jo Kim who developed a framework of player types that can act as a starting point for thinking about what motivates different types of users. These types are expressed using “social engagement verbs”: compete, collaborate, explore and express.
At 1Huddle, we offer cloud-based employee gamification software that can easily adapt to any employee training or gamification strategy you want to implement at your workplace. You can customize your content for a seamless experience and all of your employees will be able to access their training anywhere, anytime and at the push of a button. You can use our game platform to measure their performance and make key decisions on where you should take your gamification strategy next.
Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your own workforce? Talk to us today.
Sam Caucci, Founder & CEO at 1Huddle
"1Huddle is a great tool to drive knowledge retention and make it sticky, make it fun, and also serves as a huge analytics tool for us to understand the quality of the stuff we’re rolling out.” —James Webb, Global People Development & Engagement
Increase in knowledge acquisition
Annual savings per location (312+)
“All of a sudden, people are playing the game multiple times a day to rack up points to get to the top of the leaderboard.” —Lauren Constable, VP of Operations
Faster opening new locations
Annual savings opening 5 new locations
“This thing is amazing. I’m awestruck with the power of this tool. 1Huddle makes running and operating restaurants fun and greatly increases our employees’ knowledge.” —Tony Daddabbo, Director of Training
Reduction in training time
Annual savings across 60 locations