Enterprise Gamification

Enterprise gamification is the application of mechanics and rules of interaction typical of the world of games in order to motivate employees, collaborators and even customers to achieve certain results and objectives.

The enterprise gamification for the availability of feedback and KPIs in real time is particularly suitable for management by objectives (MBO) systems. That is, strategic management models that aim to improve the performance of an organization by clearly defining the objectives agreed by both management and employees.

If applied correctly, the benefits of enterprise gamification are significant and immediately noticeable:

• Increase employee involvement in business initiatives.
• The employee becomes a supporter and ambassador of the company.
• It naturally increases the motivation and above all the productivity of the employee.

• The work environment becomes a place to experience and where learning is facilitated.
• Communications within the company become faster, clearer and more transparent.
• Wrong behaviors are corrected, stimulating collaboration, innovation and healthy competition.
• It becomes easier and more immediate to identify relevant process KPIs and monitor them in real time.

Best practices for the application of enterprise gamification

Doing enterprise gamification is not easy. It is not enough to buy a “pre-packaged” platform or a plugin for your CRM. True enterprise gamification is not based on tools and technologies but on changing people’s habits and mental patterns through a planned, guided and measured path.

That’s why, before leaving you to read our resources, we would like to share with you 6 valuable tips to keep in mind:

1. First you need to plan the gamification project in detail before applying it.
2. To stimulate and motivate users in a healthy way, rewards don’t have to be purely cash or extrinsic.
3. The game must not be “just a game”, gamification must be applied to work and linked to company objectives.
4. It must enhance and not downgrade the programs and figures already present in the company.
5. We must always find the right balance between cooperation and competition , to ensure that gamification does not become a double-edged sword
6. Give priority to quality over quantity and establish precise rules for evaluating, controlling and measuring performance.

We share our experience to spread the “real” gamification

The real challenge today is not to choose the best technology in the gamification field : there are thousands of standardized and pre-packaged solutions that could meet any need.

The real problem facing project managers and business decision makers is the lack of skills and talents in the design of corporate gamification strategies.

According to Gartner, 80% of gamification projects fail because the focus is on technology and not strategy.

The focus is on the obvious game mechanics, such as points, badges, and leaderboards, rather than the more subtle and important elements of the game’s design, such as balancing competition, collaboration, or defining incremental paths of achievement.

It is not enough to count points, show meaningless badges on activities and create “gamified applications” that don’t work because they are not engaging.

Here you will find resources that will help you exploit the potential of enterprise gamification , especially through real case studies to take as a starting point: from Uber’s Luder Loop , to Wolkswagen’s crowdsourcing , passing through Lego designed by me and many others.