Today, companies use gamification in HR to develop a workplace culture where employees feel motivated. It strengthens human drivers like purpose, autonomy, mastery, relatedness and achievement, making the workplace fun and work enjoyable.
What is gamification?
Gamification meaning – Gamification is creating an incentivised work culture using competitive game principles. It deals with human psychology to win and be the best. In the process, employees learn to work hard, develop new skills and see improvements.
You can use gamification in HR for – recruitment, training, collaboration, onboarding, learning and development.
1. Gamification in recruitment
Gamification is becoming widely popular in recruitment. Most common practices include video game contests or an app-based aptitude game with candidates competing against each other. The game is designed to assess the skills required for the role.
The candidates are assessed on how they approach moving ahead in the game. It also evaluates their problem-solving skills and gives them scores. It helps recruiters streamline their assessment process. Thus, significantly reducing the hiring time.
2. Gamification in training
Unlike traditional training with a defined set of learning processes, companies use gamification principles to cultivate interest in employees to self-learning faster and better. When employees race against each other, they have the autonomy to pick their own best methods to reach the final stage, thus learning the process on their own.
3. Gamification in collaboration
Accenture uses gamification in HR to achieve its team collaboration objectives. Similarly, many other companies use platforms to track their employee engagement activities. For example, employees share content on micro-blogging sites and share knowledge in other forms to earn rewards.
Accenture employees earn reward points for publishing reusable documents. It thus encourages knowledge-sharing behaviour and promotes employee engagement. It gives their employees a sense of motivation and elevates their interest towards work.
4. Gamification in onboarding
Companies gamify their onboarding process. New joiners can learn about the company’s policy online, take an office tour, and interact with employees on the virtual platform to learn more about the company and its culture before visiting the office in person.
5. Gamification in learning and development
The HR department uses gamification principles in the learning and development of employees. It helps employees add new skills and push their boundaries to excel. For example, social media training for employees across departments like the recruitment and sales teams helps them achieve recruitment goals and sales targets.
Measuring progress through new skills and recognising the top performers with some form of bonus, cash, or non-monetary incentives encourage them to learn and add new skills in areas of their interest.
Gamification benefits organisations in many ways – from sales growth to team building and engagement. However, like any other strategy, gamification in human resources must be implemented and monitored. To improve results, customise game rules, mould the process, and reduce or raise the difficulty level.
