Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/295251
[ 38 ] HRO TODAY MAGAZINE | APRIL 2014 What's Working in Gamification An industry CEO offers an overview— and lessons learned from the front lines. By Siddhesh Bhobe Learning Interest in gamification has accelerated in the past six months. While enterprise-wide large-scale deployments are still hard to come by, gamified applications increasingly are being seriously evaluated for their ability to engage and get more productivity out of employees, replacing traditional notions of employee appraisals, rewards and recognition, knowledge sharing, and learning. Here's one surprising development: The most innovative uses of gamification are occurring in industries that you would expect to be slow at adoption—pharmaceutical and manufacturing. Here gamification is being used for enlivening and strengthening processes around audits, regulatory compliance, and promotion of best practices. Onboarding and learning are other key drivers fueling this trend. Organizations are looking to enrich employee training methodologies. From culture and voice training in call centers, to role-play games for senior project managers and customer service reps, gamification engages learners by creating memorable experiences. Starting with employee training is perhaps the best way to introduce gamification to a skeptical organization, because it does not entail a major shift in organization-wide policies, as would be required, for example, if you tried to change the way appraisals are conducted. For most organizations, gamification has primarily been about implementing a reward-points system coupled with leaderboards and badges in order to drive engagement within a closed user group. In our journey, we have quickly realized that such a points-based economy serves admirably for a few weeks until the novelty wears off. Then the incremental gains start to drop off drastically. So what are some simple ground rules that should significantly improve the chances of success in your gamification endeavors?