How Games Drive Better Outcomes In Corporate Learning

As organizations scramble to find new ways to onboard, engage, and retain employees, most have been left scratching their heads in confusion as to what works. However, one method has quietly surged its way to the top of the list for industries looking to get the most out of their people.

Playing games!

In hopes of finding new ways to keep employees engaged through corporate training sessions, some businesses have turned to gamification as a way to boost their success. While gamification has found its way in the tech industry’s list of leading buzzwords, it’s much more than that. Gamification isn’t just a way to make training fun; it’s a complete transformation in the way people learn and retain information and translate that into meaningful success on the job. 

By taking an entirely new perspective on employee motivation, gamification combines science with gaming mechanics to intrinsically motivate employees to succeed. Gamification has also found success in developing an organization’s culture, improving communication, and developing leaders.

During an episode of Enterprise Radio, 1Huddle Founder and CEO Sam Caucci joined host Eric Dye to discuss how his approach to technology-based employee training can help companies more effectively onboard and upskill employees using games.

“So, how exactly does 1Huddle help businesses and clients?” asks Eric.

It’s simple.

“Companies today are struggling to find ways to onboard, upskill, and excite their workers,” says Sam, on the evolution of the workforce. “A lot of the tech and tools companies are using games to try to recruit, motivate, and excite workers at a time with record-low unemployment. At 1Huddle, we help companies, onboard employees, quicker, upskill them better, and we do it using something that this generation of workers is already great at, like playing games.”

So, what does it all mean for you and your business? Let’s take a closer look.

3 BENEFITS OF GAMIFICATION IN THE WORKPLACE

Why have organizations started to implement games? Well, first off, employees love games! With companies continually struggling for the attention and engagement of their employees, gamification steps in and provides a ton of benefits. Here we go…

IMPROVES EMPLOYEE BEHAVIOR AND RETENTION

Who likes to read a manual? (insert crickets) Exactly…

With workforces becoming increasingly tech-savvy, corporations are moving away from boring Learning Management Systems (LMS) and print manuals. Regardless of the material, well-designed game-based experiences not only improve knowledge absorption but also boost long-term employee knowledge retention. Games offer employees a first-hand look at how their choices are rewarded or penalized and gives them a chance to analyze and solve intricate problems in a fun, risk-free environment, while still understanding how it can be applied in the workforce.

“The last thing people want to do when they get a job is to be put in a classroom and handed a textbook in the form of a manual. The research proves this is not the most effective way to change behavior.” says Sam.

But as Eric points out, “What makes 1Huddle different from what’s already been tried before?”

It starts with effective development.

“Behavior change does not happen by doing the same old stuff with traditional HR teams locking employees in workshops or pushing out video modules for compliance training. These things are not effective. 

At 1Huddle, our platform is mobile-first. 98% of our gameplay happens on mobile. Not only that, but people are playing outside of working hours. 78% of our games this year have been played off the clock. We’re creating opportunities for training and development outside of traditional work. The game layer just makes it something fun and competitive.”

INCREASES EMPLOYEE ENGAGEMENT

No matter what you’re hoping to teach someone, no effective outcomes will be reached if employees aren’t interested in the material. With games, organizations have the chance to engage with their employees fully and motivate them to reach a goal in a fun, competitive way.

Take Dog Haus for example.

“One of our best clients over the last few years is a fast-growing franchise brand called Dog Haus,” says Sam. “They originally were looking for a way to put all of their manuals and systems into a digital platform. Instead of buying an academic e-learning suite, they bought 1Huddle. 

But the most exciting thing to me about them is that while they’ve sold 100-plus units in such a short time, they’re also seeing close to 100% participation across their network. They’re seeing employee feedback scores that are extremely high while talking about something like training, which isn’t traditionally something people are excited about.”

And, even more interesting, they use games as a differentiator!

Dog Haus has touted that they are actually using their new approach with games as a core part of their training and development approach as a way for them to differentiate from other players in a very crowded franchise space.

ADAPTABLE FOR THE MOBILE WORKFORCE

We need to meet employees where they are…and it isn’t at a desk anymore.

Regardless of what you’re training, if people can have fun and be excited about what they’re learning, they are much more likely to engage with material outside of work. And, as a higher percentage of the workforce becomes remote workers, we need tools that make it easy to consume new learning on the go.

“Everything you do has to be mobile-first,” says Sam. “We spend so much time as business executives in meetings talking about meeting the customer where they are, it’s about time we meet our employees where they are. We have to make training and development accessible to everybody in our workforce.”

“Loews Hotels is a great example for us. They have 20-plus properties, a top 50 hotel brand, and their security guards can download and play games on 1Huddle just like their general managers. It’s accessible to everybody. If you want to develop the next wave of workers, you have to stop turning them over.”

CORPORATE GAMIFICATION MADE SIMPLE

Sounds simple, right? Well, that’s because it is. In fact, it’s pretty much part of our daily lives, whether we know it or not.

“As consumers, our lives are overwhelmed by gamification without us even knowing it,” says Sam. “If you frequently fly as an executive, you probably care about your frequent flyer miles. If you have the loyalty points with a credit card, you’re using gamification already. 

What we’ve realized at 1Huddle is that people already understand games and how these mechanics motivate us, but what if we took this really powerful mechanic and brought it into the work environment to motivate workers to do something that’s always a challenge, which is to train and develop. What if we could bring the great parts of games into the workforce to drive better employee performance?”

If you want people to buy into what you’re doing, you have to incentivize the journey for them, as well. Through well-designed and structured gamification, companies can fire up and engage with their team at a level that hasn’t been possible…until now.

Do you want to learn more about how 1Huddle can help you level up your workforce? Talk to us today.