There are plenty of issues at work. When you think about solving one of these problems, do you ever think about playing a game? Gamification in business is a highly effective strategy increasingly backed by research.
Before I realised the benefits of gamification in the workplace, I was skeptical. I believed that work was no place for games. After all, games are a form of play, and most of us consider work to be the opposite of play.
But the more I read about how some leading-edge companies use gamification to meet their goals, the more intrigued I became. So I started asking myself how to implement it in my work and use it to help others.
In this article, I’ll explore the following:
- Examples of gamification
- Gamification research and results from companies of all sizes
- Gamification definition
- 10 ways to use gamification and benefits
- A case study from my personal work with the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology
Examples of Gamification in the Workplace: Research and Results
Companies across the spectrum use gamification to create impact where it counts and accomplish things like employee referral increases, behaviour changes, and team motivation.
It works for large companies, too. For example, NIKE increased its online visibility by awarding points to customers who met their sports goals and shared them on social media. To teach employees the best practices for plant operations, Siemens developed a storyline centered around a character called “Pete the Plant Manager,” while IBM introduced a digital badge training programme, which encouraged learners to share their badges on social media.
According to experts, 70% of the world’s largest 2000 companies engage in some form of gamification.
Furthermore, research confirms the effectiveness of gamification as shown by the following results:
- Companies had 7x more profitability when they used gamification with customers or employees
- 90% of employees report higher productivity, and 48% report a significant increase in engagement
- 67% of learners say that learning is more engaging and effective when it’s gamified
- Gamification increases employee happiness by 89%
Gamification Definition: What is Gamification in the Workplace?
Gamification is the infusion of gaming elements into a non-game context. A workplace game has strategic elements that serve a specific purpose, unlike children’s games, whose purpose is less conscious.
Game elements can include rewards such as points, competition, exploratory play, or game-like design.
The bottom line is that gamification makes non-fun things more fun and, therefore, more motivating. So, far from distracting people from work goals, it can be the secret ingredient that helps people meet them.
10 Benefits of Using Gamification in Business
Consider using a gamification element or strategy whenever you want to:
- Bring together cross-functional teams and ignite their creativity and innovation.
- Handle complex and challenging issues constructively.
- Encourage authentic expression and insight, so people say what they mean instead of not speaking, hedging, or pleasing people.
- Provide an equal playing field for honest dialogue and discussion. This can be useful in a situation where a few team members tend to dominate the conversation.
- Incentivise goals, objectives, or performance.
- Create real consensus and commitment.
- Create company-wide behavioural change or cultural shift.
- Create an effective strategy session.
- Prepare for a big project.
- Create alignment by discovering how team members see themselves working together.
A Personal Case Study: How to Use the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® Methodology to Define Good Leadership in an Organisation
If you’re looking for concrete examples of gamification in the workplace, a recent workshop I conducted with a nonprofit organisation is a good one. When this nonprofit asked me to help facilitate leadership development, I used the LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® methodology as a tool.
LEGO® SERIOUS PLAY® is a method where you essentially build your idea about a subject (in this case, we focused on leadership), create a 3-D “model” of your concept using LEGO® bricks, and illustrate your model through storytelling.
Here’s how the session flowed and a few key takeaways from it.
Warmup by Building a Tower
I created a set of guiding questions to help each group member build their core concept of leadership. We began with a warmup where I asked them to make a tower and use as many LEGO® bricks as possible. When they were done, they each told the story behind their model. We then reflected on what they’d heard and how they felt about the process. Finally, I asked them if they noticed anything different or unusual about the models and encouraged everyone to listen.
Using the Tower to Think about Leadership Experiences
After the warmup, I asked each person to add or remove blocks from their tower so that the model might represent an experience of good or bad leadership in their careers. The same storytelling and sharing cycle followed, and they slowly began to open up, often having in-the-moment realisations.
This tower began to embody a highly personal 3-D metaphor for leadership for each person. It began to take on subjective experiences and beliefs about leadership and their stories.
Lasering in on Leadership at the Organisation
What does good leadership look like, not in general, but at this organisation?
This is the next question I asked.
While it may appear simple, it can be mission-critical information that’s surprisingly difficult to access. When asked this question, it’s normal to lean on habitual responses, received wisdom, assumptions, or truisms.
Building a tower from LEGO® bricks allows participants to break free of these limitations and uncover or develop active, unique ideas.
After each participant shared their tower, they noted thoughts and adjectives about their “good leadership model” on a whiteboard. When they finished, the whiteboard notes offered a working model of good leadership that was both individual and team-built. Finally, I asked them to reflect on how they can move towards this model of good leadership in the coming weeks and months. What behaviours and actions can they change or implement?
Even though this workshop was virtual, there was enormous engagement. People built some fascinating models, and they were open about their stories.
Their next step is to conduct similar workshops with their team members and get their feedback on good leadership. This could become a building block of company culture by helping ensure that everyone is on the same page. Another tool, the Emotional Culture Deck, could then be brought into the process to build a detailed blueprint of good organisational leadership, including actions, behaviours, and rituals that bring that to life.
Final Words on Play and Gamification in Business
Stay open-minded as you explore the potential benefits of gamification. Convention, skepticism, overwhelm, or perfectionism might shut down exploration and innovation. But, on the other hand, you’ll never know if gamification can help you if you don’t conduct a few experiments.
Give gamification in the workplace a go. Its positive effects on company culture and innovative thinking may surprise you.
Change Aligned guides organisations and leaders to create the right conditions for change today, to achieve sustainable success tomorrow. Learn more.
Disclaimer: LEGO, SERIOUS PLAY, IMAGINOPEDIA, the Minifigure and the Brick and Knob configurations are trademarks of the LEGO Group, which does not sponsor, authorise or endorse this website.
About the author
Olga Valadon is the Founder and Director of Change Aligned. She is a strategist, leadership mentor and corporate empathy expert with three decades of experience in global corporates. Her company specialises in culture design and leadership development. Olga is on the board of the University of Cambridge Primary school, advisor to Equal Employer®, and associate management lecturer at BPP University.
