Gamification in a Global Workforce

Play hard, work hard?

Do we know the difference between play and work? Play is more fun and engaging, while work is more like something that ‘you have to do’?

When we play football with friends in the park, when we spend evenings playing table games in nice company, when we compete in video games and delay our working tasks because of being immersed in smartphone app games – this is when PLAY happens. During these moments, we forget the time, we are fully engaged in the action, we are driven and motivated to continue. Why? Because we enjoy what we are doing, we have high intrinsic motivation.

Now, when we work, do we do it to get paid and avoid being fired? Judging from the many employee engagement and motivation discussions online, it looks as if this archaic carrot and stick approach to motivation is still largely in use. For many, work remains a form of traditional drudgery.

Yet, this view is also being increasingly challenged. I touched upon this topic in one of my older posts, describing the differences between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation, and making the case for the latter. Building on the same self-determination theory of motivation, career analyst Dan Pink argues in his fascinating TED talk that traditional rewards aren’t always as effective as we think. Reinforcing the case for intrinsic motivation is also the relatively new but quickly spreading trend of gamification.

 

Play hard, play hard

As defined in a Forbes article, ‘gamification is taking the essence of games—attributes such as engagement, transparency, design and competition—and applying them to a range of real-world processes inside an organization’. In other words, gamification is about rethinking motivation, it is about making the process of work as engaging and fun as possible.

As the Forbes article reports, gamification can drive higher levels of business performance. Successful gamification cases include for example Nike and Starbucks, which used gaming to build a stronger and more loyal community of their customers. Further, more and more companies are starting to seize the benefits and effectiveness of gaming in terms of workforce needs. The U.S. Army is an example of using gaming for recruiting and training purposes. Similarly, in the IT innovation company NTT Data gamification is used to develop leadership skills. The Ignite Leadership game that NTT created allows leaders to develop negotiation, communication, time management, change management and problem solving skills by having employees fully experience a variety of immersive leadership scenarios.

 

Gamification for a global workforce?

If all this gaming does indeed do any good for employees’ motivation and engagement, then global companies should definitely consider this initiative. Given the virtual setup of gamification tools, it seems that they should work regardless of employees’ location and distance from headquarters. Moreover, due to this virtual setup, a gamified space can help global companies to overcome the engagement difficulties of their remotely located employees.

Sharing some tips for gamification in a global setting, the professionals of Prialto, a virtual support services company, suggest the gamified space to be used to support employee engagement and encourage team-bonding. For instance, gaming allows for creating mixed virtual teams to break the common boundaries between different units of a multinational or subunits of a globally dispersed team, and make employees’ accomplishments visible on all levels and locations of the organization.

Finally, gaming is used to remotely train and develop employees. Just imagine all the gamified possibilities for language learning, strengthening corporate values, and developing cross-cultural skills. As a matter of fact, I can already imagine some sort of ‘survival abroad’ game that challenges expats to prepare and adjust cross-culturally to a new location. The game could task players to solve different problems (along different scenarios) in a particular host cultural setting, while providing additional educational tips and videos, and have host country employees give virtual feedback and badges for accomplishments. Thinking about it, I personally wouldn’t mind taking up Kung-Fu Panda as a gaming character, having to battle through the manifold adversities in culturally distant China. Sounds like fun to me J