Can Gamification Improve Productivity and Efficiency in your Business?

Apply Gamification to Improve Productivity and Success

Discover how Gamification is Playing a Bigger Part in our Lives

Discover the Thinking behind Gamification

Is Gamification Right for your Business?

Gamification works on the same motivational principles that computer games have used for years. They have predefined goals and rewards for reaching them, they allow for autonomy as games are played at the pace of the gamer, and they show players how well they have improved. These principles have started to emerge in other areas of our lives, from improving personal training to teaching surgeons how to perform operations. The early signs of using gamification in this way are positive.

The purpose of this post is to try and shed light on gamification, and to see if you can apply it to your own organisation to improve productivity and efficiency.

Sport Performance and Gamification

There are now a plethora of sport apps available using gamification principles. The idea is that sporting performance is improved by using levels and or a game environment to improve performance. These motivators are used in conjunction with the latest sport science theory to improve performance and overall health.

Zombie, Run! – is an app which immerses the user in an apocalyptic, zombie overrun world. The idea is that when a user goes for a jog, a story unfolds. To hear the whole story they have to at a command from the app, break into a sprint and maintain it until the app tells them to stop. The app features zombie sound effects, and the more of the story which is uncovered little rewards are given to the user. If the user fails to obey a command, they are ‘eaten alive’, and they start again.

As well as giving runners a story and focus, the app also keeps statistics which show improvement. This idea of using gamification for real physical exercise has coined its own name: Exergaming.

This app complies with the motivational principles of computer gaming, and is no doubt a factor in its success.

In the medical profession, gamification is being used to teach surgeons how to perform complex operations. Dr Carla Pugh MD, vice chair of education and patient safety at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, explained the advantages of performing an operation in a ‘game’.

She said: “Reading about how to do a pelvic exam and then actually trying to do it, there’s so much that’s lost in translation.

“I think that everybody’s ready to kind of change the direction and the way in which we train and learn, and there’s so many things that are available right now. We just need to embrace them”

Gamification and your Organisation

Although gamification is not exactly new, it is still needs to be fully developed. To implement gamification into an operational business will require a lot of outside of the box thinking. Perhaps if you wanted to make use of it, you should use a form of gamification to address the business critical factors which need to be achieved, and devise a suitable reward system for employees that manage to achieve them.

The idea of gamification is that you put together something which is interactive, fun, yet important. This will help your employees hit objectives which can only be good for the business.

Source:

Esante.gouv.fr

Harvard Business Review