Gamification in the workplace can be a powerful tool for strategic leaders, using game design and human psychology to drive desirable business outcomes such as increased productivity and employee engagement. You don't need to play video games to understand the ability of gamification to modify human behaviors. As game designers have long understood, humans seem to be hardwired to enjoy interacting with basic gaming elements such as point systems, increasingly challenging levels, meeting intermittent challenges, winning and wanting to be on scoreboards and ranked. During the simulation that we participated in during class, gamification was highlighted as an effective tool for leaders and organizational staff to understand how decisions are made om behalf of the organization and the impact that these decisions have on staff and the organization as a whole. This tool can be utilized across multiple organizations based on their status of achieving their organizational goals. While employee engagement and productivity are complicated ideas, and often highly-individualized to boot, they do lend themselves to gamification. A key component of …show more content…
Recognition, rewards and a sense of competition are all strong motivators. Gamification works because it taps into each of these motivators to keep employees engaged. This was experienced as everyone in class participated in the simulation and was truly engaged throughout the process. Also once the results were reveled, a greater interest and sense of enjoyment and fun was exhibited by everyone who participated. With that said, this convergence of technology and productivity is where game mechanics are used in a non-gaming context. Traditionally, you can’t get further away from a ‘game’ than at work. However, in many companies, there’s a big problem with lack of employee engagement. If employees aren’t motivated to do their best, businesses will lose out. This is where gamification comes
Boston, MA: Pearson Sivarethinamohan, R. R., & Aranganathan, P. P. (2011). Determinants of employee engagement
References: Buob, J. n.d. - n.d. - n.d. Retrieved from http://fisher.osu.edu/supplements/10/9161/CVS%20Stock%20Report_20121120_Final_Juliette%20Buob.pdf. Cumstock, J. (2013, Nov. ). In: Journal of Applied Science. Retrieved from http://mobihealthnews.com/27298/four-factors-driving-gamification-in-healthcare/. Ortiz, J. n.d. - n.d. - n.d. Retrieved from Cumstock, J. (2013, Nov. ).
The influence it has on L&TD is not only changing delivered activities to employees, but also transforming the conventional ways of delivering, learning and thinking. AI is nothing new, nothing complicated, and it is applicable now. It is believed that AI will be widely used, and HR professionals need to integrate advanced technologies into L&TD practices since it can bring positive impacts on performance level, help conduct better and quicker decisions. Meanwhile, gamification should be integrated into practices by HR professionals in order to help learners experience opportunities for autonomy, competence and relatedness; and to maximise one’s enjoyment and engagement level by capturing the interest of each learner to improve the outcome of L&TD
Lastly, McGonigal speaks of gaming as an intrinsic reward. She describes it as, “a productive pastime; experiencing the four things we crave the most, thus producing a higher quality of life” (372). This can be a controversial topic between gamers and non-gamers. There are gamers that use it as an escape from reality. Through gaming, virtual material rewards are received. Praise is gained from fellow gamers and if a gamer excels, a status is obtained. This is more supportive of the extrinsic reward system in this reader’s opinion.
Video games do a very effective job of bringing people together that have the same interest and giving them a sense of community Video games help young adults improve their overall confidence in solving everyday problems. Video games are built on the concept that there is a problem and that the gamer has to find out the solution. This leads to gamers thinking about different possibilities that will solve the problem at hand.
In support of the belief that video games benefit people intellectually, there is a claim that game play provides cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social benefits (Granic, Lobel, Engels). In partial response, video games cannot offer cognitive benefits because they do not offer real life lessons. Yes, game play may allow someone to gain knowledge that will later be applied to the video game, but there are no positive real world techniques to be obtained. Playing video games will not increase and individuals motivational skills. The defense is made that failure within video games is intended to serve as motivational tools, providing multiple chances to reach success (Granic, Lobel, and Engels). While the feeling of success may be prevalent when an objective is completed, this fe...
The industry of games is undoubtedly appealing and it has been just a matter of time until their alluring power entered in our day by day activities. The concept of gamification may look as a new idea at a first sight, but if you track down the history of gamification it is evident that this notion of using game mechanics and dynamics has always been in our lifestyle. However, technology has been progressed, thus creating new opportunities but the foundation of gamification remains the same: Gamification applies game dynamics and mechanics to activities beyond traditional games. Assuredly, the idea is very promising and it is too worthy to be ignored.
Based off of the gratification an individual contains towards their work is job satisfaction. The productivity could either be positive or negative while the relationship between the productivity and satisfaction may not be consistent. There are multiple internal and external factors of job satisfaction that can impact the behavior of an employee and engagement over time. The way the worker’s attitude concerning their field effects the performance they perform on a daily basis. One who is satisfied with the job they maintain, succeed at what they do. “It is therefore imperative for a company to understand the attitude of its workers and measure the job satisfaction of its employees, as job satisfaction is essential for productivity” (L. Bradshaw
Most systems are “function-focused” designed to get the job done quickly, however, Human-Focused Design remembers that people in the system have feelings, insecurities, and reasons why they want or do not want to do things, and therefore optimizes for their feelings, motivations, and engagement. Inside the games there are “objectives”, such as killing the dragon or saving the princess, or in Math Games like dreambox to learn/practice Math, but actually the main purpose of a game is to please the human inside, to keep the player happily entertained. Through games, we are learning how to master motivation and engagement. Games have the amazing ability to keep people engaged for a long time, build relationships and trust between people, and develop their creative potential. In a nutshell, gamification is a way to engage people by making something that’s not a game feel like a game.
Incentive reward engagement offers a win-win situation for the employees and the company. Kelleher believes that incentive is a form of recognition and builds engagement through company’s and employee’s obligations towards a common goal (2014). The company has a “Growth Incentive Scheme” for the production workers. Special monetary incentives are provided should the workers achieve the monthly output target. Through the rewards, employees feel motivated towards their work and thus, contribute towards the company’s
To determine their emotional responses, the participants were asked to fill out short-answer questions. The participants emphasized that personal respect and fatigue were factors as to why the game was stressful to play. Finally, to determine how the simulation game changed their perspective of the class, the participants were asked to fill out questionnaires. Ninety percent of the participants enjoyed simulations game, while sixty-nine percent had positive responses. This article is relevant toward my argument because of the counter-arguments.
The employee engagement is a relatively new term in the corporate world. Due to the global nature of work and diversity of workforce, it has become a key part of competitive advantage for many organisations. The engagement at work was conceptualized by Kahn (1990:694) as the “harnessing of organisational members’ selves to their work roles; in engagement, people employ and express themselves physically, cognitively and emotionally during role performances”. The other related construct to engagement in organisational behaviour is the notion of flow. Csikszentmihalyi (1975, 1990) defines flow as the ‘holistic sensation’ that people feel when they act with total involvement.
Here are some figures that display how Employee engagement practices have bolstered up the efficiency and productivity of the employees and in return have augmented the profits of the companies. According to a new meta-analysis that was conducted by the Gallup organisation amongst 1.4 million employees, the organisations that focus on employee engagement practices to a large extent have reported 22% increase in productivity. These practices even impr...
There are two approaches to games and learning, namely, Game-Based Learning (GBL) and gamification. GBL, also referred to as 'Serious Games', which are computer or video games designed for a primary purpose (education or solving a problem) other than entertainment. This involves the use of simulations to support teaching and learning. Gaming simulation is an interactive-learning environment that makes it possible to cope with authentic situations that closely mimic reality. According to Kip Kelly (2013) “serious games can allow players to apply what they have learned in an L&D [Learning and Development] experience and apply it in a safe, simulated environment. For example, health care professionals can practice a new medical procedure using a serious simulation game before introducing it in the workplace”.
There are several negative stereotypes associated with video games and those who play them; some of these may often hold true. However, there are plenty of learning opportunities in video games. While the direct purpose of some games is to educate or train, other games that do not directly have this purpose can still become a learning experience for the player. As Ntiedo Etuk, president of the educational video game company Tabula Digital said, “The traditional view of video games has been that they are distractions from the task of learning” (Electronic Education Report 1). Video games are an effective tool for learning and retaining skills both inside and outside the classroom environment. The basic cycle of game play--the introduction to the game, game play, collaboration, improvement of these between each round, and evaluation at the end of the game (Klievink and Janssen 159)--are nearly parallel to the traditional classroom learning cycle of reading a textbook or listening to a lecture, taking a quiz, studying, focusing on items missed on the quiz, and taking a test or exam. Within this cycle, there are many opportunities to develop and perfect both educational, life, and occupational skills.