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Using gamification in workflows. What is internal gamification. Why implement gamification in business

People love to play. In childhood, games are perhaps the main means of understanding the world and human development, and throughout life they retain their attraction, as they are able to entertain us and satisfy our needs for self-realization, competition and success.

Brave and inventive minds could not ignore this feature of human nature, so the idea was born to turn boring processes into a game that require a lot of effort and time. This is how gamification gradually appeared - a powerful strategy for applying game mechanics to non-game activities in order to control the motivation and behavior of groups of people.

Gamification comes to business

One of the first adepts of gamification, as is often the case with new technologies, was business. Today, we are just beginning to realize its enormous potential, and visionary professionals are already fantasizing about a world of the future, in which the game becomes the main way consumers interact with brands, products and services. Authoritative analysts give dry figures: by 2015, more than 50% of organizations that manage innovation processes will move to their gamification.

A business can use gaming techniques both within the company (to motivate and manage staff) and outside of it (to increase consumer engagement and loyalty, and for other purposes). In this article, we will focus on gamification in the field of internet marketing.

What is gamification in its correct understanding

A beautiful new concept of turning life into a game has spread rapidly. The popularity of ideas always leads to their distortion and simplification. This fate has not escaped gamification. Many people think that it is enough to draw bright badges, come up with levels and bring participants into a rating - and the system will work by itself, miracles of engagement will occur, people will start desperately fighting for high positions in the leaderboards.

No. Everything is much more complicated and interesting. Proper gamification implies careful design of the game system, its close connection with the company's business goals, the needs and capabilities of the participants in the game process (which need to be researched and analyzed), as well as the ability to manage the motivation and behavior of people.

6 Steps to Building a Successful Gamification System

Sometimes gamification does not bring the expected result. The company is investing resources in creating a gaming system, but consumers are showing low activity, involvement is not growing. The reason in such cases is most likely that the system is built poorly. For example, important principles of game creation were not taken into account, knowledge on motivation management was not applied, business goals were set incorrectly.

We recommend using the guide to building a gaming system from one of the leading experts in the field of gamification, Kevin Werbach. In the book Together with co-author Dan Hunter, Kevin provides 6 steps to implement gamification. We present them here with our additions.

1. Set Gamification Goals

Remember the English mnemonic abbreviation SMART, which contains the rules for setting goals?

Goals should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound.

Your gamification objectives (e.g., increasing website or social media engagement, increasing conversions, promoting your products and services, etc.) should have these five characteristics. In the future, when developing a game system, you should constantly keep goals in mind and bring each element of the system in line with them.

2. Determine the target behavior of the players

Think about the behavior you expect from participants in the gamification system. What specific steps do they need to take in order to achieve your business goals set in the first step? It is necessary to describe all the chains of actions of the players, this will form the basis for the design of the system.

3. Describe the players

If you are in internet marketing, we no longer need to prove that you need to know your audience. No doubt you have web analytics data, imagine the main types of your consumers or readers, their interests and habits.

Now you need to study them even deeper, understand their needs. What do they want - interesting content, special status in the community, connections with other people, or something else? Do they care about receiving virtual awards or only tangible, practical awards?

Answer these and other related questions. Describe the different types of your players, their needs, and think about how you can motivate these people to perform the actions identified in the second step.

4. Design the structure of the gamification system

For Werbach and Hunter, the structure of the game system has two levels.

At the micro level - engagement cycles. These are the chains “motivation to action → action → feedback”. You motivate the player to action, he performs an action and receives from the system feedback(in the form of rewards or other events that are the system's reaction to the player's actions). In the feedback stage, you should create motivation for the player to take the next action (for example, through calls to action and motivation management techniques).

At the macro level - "Player's Journey", as the authors themselves call it. This is the exciting story behind the gamification system, the story of the player's development from novice to master. The "journey" consists of many cycles of involvement and must be scripted in advance.

5. Give the players some fun

You run the risk of getting too carried away with the development of gamification mechanisms and system structure and forgetting that the game should be an enjoyable activity, entertainment. Otherwise, the system will not work, even if you ensure that the needs of the players are met. From time to time, try to look at the system being created through the eyes of a participant to see if the game will be fun.

6. Build a gamification system

Consider the use of technology to run the gaming system. How gamification will be implemented on the site, in mobile applications or even through physical devices? Bring together all the information and structure prepared in the previous steps, add game mechanics and dynamics to them, which will be discussed later, and build the system.

Main principles of gamification systems

When designing a gamification system, use the wisdom of game designers who have mastered how to get people involved in games. We all know the pleasant sensations of advances in computer and mobile games, the desire to return to the game again and again after a break, solve the tasks proposed in it and go through it to the end. You need to create just such an experience for the users of your system.

Human Behavior Change Model

Essentially, gamification is a technique for changing the behavior of groups of people. you create game conditions in which people perform the actions you need.

Professor BJ Fogg, head of the Persuasive Tech Lab at Stanford University, offers a model of behavior consisting of three elements: motivation (motivation), opportunity (ability), impulse (trigger).

The Fogg model applies to the entire field of behavior change through websites and software. We will consider its three elements in the context of gamification.

Motivation. This is an incentive to participate in the game system. You know the needs of the players, promise to satisfy them and thus motivate them to play.

Possibility. People should be able to participate. Each person has their own life circumstances and is by nature quite lazy, so your task is to simplify the target behavior and entry into the game as much as possible. The principles outlined later in the article show how this can be achieved.

Pulse. This is the impetus for concrete action. A motivated person who has the opportunity to play does not yet know what exactly needs to be done. Push them with a call to action, a reminder, a hint, or any other suggestion to take action.

For human behavior to change, all three elements must exist and operate. simultaneously otherwise the person will lose interest.

Game mechanics and dynamics

These are the key elements of gamification - the building blocks from which the game system is built based on the framework, that is, the structure that you developed in step 4.

Game mechanics - the rules of the game and its elements such as points, badges, achievements, levels and other rewards.

Game Dynamics - scenarios of participation in the game, which describe how the mechanics work, interact with each other, respond to the actions of the player, how he progresses in his "journey".

After analyzing the needs of the players at the 3rd stage of creating the system, you will understand what kind of rewards will be of value to them. These can be both virtual signs of their achievements and superiority over others, as well as real valuable prizes (not T-shirts, mugs and pens, but gifts of high value, depending on the needs and social status of the players).

Simple and liberal rules

It is important to lower the entry barrier to the game so as not to alienate users. Make learning the rules as fast as possible for the players. Don't set hard limits - find a balance between freedom and delicately guiding participants along the path you need for your goals. Apply cascading information.

Cascading information feed

This principle also aims to lower the barrier to entry into the game. It is especially relevant for complex gamification systems, although it should be used in simple ones as well.

You should not at the very beginning bring down an avalanche of rules and other information on the player. Serve it in portions, at the right time. You probably noticed that this is exactly what is done in computer games - learning to control and other aspects of the game occurs gradually, in the form of prompts that appear when necessary.

For example, the most basic rules can be stated briefly and clearly at the beginning, and the rest are distributed according to the stages of participation in the game.

Competitive environment

Let players not only reach heights in the overall ranking of all users, but also compete with their friends. Invite participants to connect their accounts on Twitter, Facebook, Vkontakte and other popular social networks to the system so that they can find their friends who are already using your system.

Attainability of victory

The player must clearly see the path from the beginning of the game to the pinnacle of success in it. At the same time, he must be sure that he can reach the top. If at the beginning of the game the user is on the 2367th place in the leaderboard of participants, and his actions do not noticeably increase his rating for a long time, he will most likely leave the game.

Gradual complication of tasks

At the initial stage, set extremely simple tasks for the player, which will provide him with an easy entry into the game and getting the first motivating achievements. Gradually increase the difficulty of the tasks to keep the player interested, to give him a sense of his development within the game.

Breaking down difficult tasks into multiple steps with rewards

Do not put in front of the player formidable obstacles. If a task requires a lot of time to complete, break it into several stages and give the user an intermediate reward for completing each stage while at the same time motivating them to continue. Otherwise, the participant may abandon the game.

Participation in the game on a voluntary basis

Sometimes - it depends on the specifics of your business - it is worth considering the possibility of performing actions without participating in the game. Perhaps the user does not have the time and desire to play, he needs to quickly complete personal tasks using your products and services. Actively promote the gamification system, but - if it makes sense - gently offer to bypass it.

Return a user who left the game

Even if you manage to develop the best gamification system in the world, many participants will leave the game for various reasons. Consider ways to get them back. These can be rewards for regular visits to the site, a direct dependence of the player's rating on his activity in the system, the use of email marketing to remind you and offer new attractive conditions.

Permanent analysis of statistics

Collect all necessary player activity statistics using web analytics systems and software components of the gamification system. Analyze incoming data and adjust your gamification strategy by finding new opportunities to identify the needs of players, satisfy them, and motivate players to take the actions you need.

What's next?

This article is a starting point for those who are interested in gamification and may be planning to create a game system to control the behavior of their audience.

If you skimmed through the text and are now reading the conclusion, go back to the beginning of the article and read it carefully in its entirety: you will get acquainted with all the main aspects of gamification, after which you will be ready to develop a simple game system yourself.

For a deeper dive into the topic of gamification, we recommend:

• Read Kevin Werbach's interview about the 6 stages of developing a gamification system (or listen to the podcast version).
• Explore BJ Fogg's Behavior Change Model.
• Check out the interactive Behavior Change Options Chart developed by B.J. Fogg and his Persuasive Tech Lab team at Stanford University.
• Read and keep an extremely helpful list of nearly 50 game mechanics and dynamics from game developer SCVNGR.
• Take Kevin Werbach's free 10-week online Gamification course on Coursera.
• Download and read a short white paper Gamification 101: An Introduction to the Use of Game Dynamics to Influence Behavior from Bunchball.
• Find and read books For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize Your Business Kevin Werbach Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps Gabe Zicherman and Christopher Cunningham and other books on gamification.

What is gamification in business, why is it needed, experts said. The article contains the pros and cons of introducing gamification, tips from HR practitioners and examples. Having studied the recommendations, you can avoid common mistakes.

From the article you will learn:

What is gamification in business

Gamification in business involves the development and implementation of game elements in workflows. It is used to train employees, instill corporate norms in them, rally the team, etc.

Gamification is somewhat different from business games, brainstorming and case studies in that it includes additional elements: ratings, awards, badges, and much more.

★Introducing gamification in a company, you can create themed locations right in the office. This approach and a special interior attracts the attention of not only employees, but also customers. Experts from HR Director magazine will tell you how to turn a serious work task into a game.

Using gamification in business, make the symbols and signs of success attractive to employees. Make a process awards public, and the awards that the winners receive are significant in their career. If you give them out just for show, the staff will quickly lose interest in innovations and stop showing initiative.

Example At Delta, the head Ilya decided to introduce gamification into personnel management processes, relying on the competing company Omega. The leaders of competitions and games were awarded certificates, small gifts, which most often found a place in the table in the farthest corner. Even after a while, labor efficiency did not increase, and in general, Ilya did not achieve the desired results. He began to look for what his mistake was. Only later did he understand why Omega employees began to work better. Them motivated by material bonuses : bonuses, salary increase. Ilya revised the approach to the reward system. Now, instead of unnecessary pieces of paper and gifts, he handed out certificates and accrued bonuses. The situation changed for the better, and the team tried their best to prove themselves.

Why implement gamification in business

Gamification is ideal for companies with a young and dynamically developing team, ready to learn everything new and interesting. In some cases, the game is negatively perceived by staff, applicants, especially when older employees work in the organization. Before you design and implement gamification, think about what tasks and how you can perform with it.

6 tasks that gamification solves

Task number 1. Career guidance for students - we attract talented young people to the company

If the company often needs new staff, develop tests, questionnaires that you send out to graduates of educational institutions. Also organize field events, hold games, involve young people in solving cases, etc. Some will realize that they want to work in your company, and after training or an internship, you will be able to employ them.

Task number 2. We save on recruitment

If you want to use game elements in the selection of personnel, choose games, tests that reflect the essence corporate culture. While conducting quests or evaluating test results, you will be able to weed out unsuitable applicants who will probably not appreciate the company's traditions.

★Gamification at the selection stage has long been used by foreign and Russian companies. We do not recommend copying someone else's experience. Be sure to adapt it to the specifics of the company and the characteristics of our country.

For example, Sberbank actively uses the Bank Management Olympiad called “Battle of the Banks”. The computer game completely imitates the work of the departments. Students can evaluate the possibilities, make the final decision when choosing a profession. This is how promising graduates end up at Sberbank.

Task number 3. We adapt staff without formalities

The adaptation of personnel, the process of getting to know the team and responsibilities is quick and painless when the organization provides for a minimum of formalities. Introduce game elements into the daily life of the team, because they improve the psychological climate, make it clear the intricacies of work. Information in an accessible form is easier to digest and remember.

Task number 4. Motivate employees with gamification

Motivational programs, which are based on the game, provide new opportunities for leaders. You can get away from the usual cash bonuses. As an option - to award points to leaders, which they can accumulate and exchange for bonuses, gifts, and other bonuses. In some companies, an employee who has scored a certain number of points may receive an increase in salary.

Advantages and disadvantages of gamification in business

The introduction of gamification in personnel management has both pros and cons. Far from every company game elements are used, so before you start developing them, weigh the pros and cons.

Benefits of Gamification	Disadvantages of Gamification
Increased labor productivity; Leaders can be identified; There is immediate feedback; The quality of communication in the team is growing; Reduced conflicts between employees; The staff is united by one common idea; Easily inculcated corporate values; The psychological climate improves; Mood rises	It is necessary to develop new games, contests, as they tend to become obsolete; Not all employees want to participate in the games, despite the bonuses; If the process is not properly organized, games can take a lot of time, and therefore damage workflows; Companies need to allocate money for the development of games, computer programs.

1. Evaluate the company's financial capabilities

If the budget allows, use not only classic games, but also computer games developed by specialists taking into account the specifics of the organization and corporate culture.

1. Do not turn the company premises into a "game room"

Keep in mind that an excessive amount of scenery, locations distracts from work, causes misunderstanding among customers. Everything should be in moderation.

1. Do not force employees to participate in all activities

If you force employees to participate in games, there will be more harm from gamification in business. People will begin to withdraw, to experience a feeling of dissatisfaction, which in the future may lead to their leaving the company. If someone does not want to participate in games, contests - put up with it. The methodology of the experts of the magazine "Director of Human Resources". Do you want to know how actively employees participate in the life of the company?

1. Make sure that employees not only earn points for their personal interests, passing the next stage in the game, but also work.

Otherwise, part of the projects will be overdue, and customers will remain dissatisfied. In the future, this will negatively affect financial well-being.

1. When implementing gamification in business, do not copy the experience of other companies.

All games, olympiads, competitions must be adapted, developed taking into account the current norms and rules of the company, corporate culture etc. Involve experts if you are not good at all the intricacies.

There has been a lot of talk about gamification lately. They talk about the essence of the technology and the history of its origin, describe the mechanics, cite Foursquare as an example, collect statistics and conduct surveys. There is enough theory in the network, but there are few high-quality examples of the use of gamification in business. This article aims to show, using the example of LiveTex, how you can organically fit gamification tools into the company's business processes.

About company

LiveTex is a Russian IT-company whose own products allow communication between site visitors and site owners, thereby increasing the conversion of an Internet resource. Within the company, there are several management departments that interact directly with clients: Acquisition, Sales, Accompanying, Key Accounts, and Technical Support. The organization strives to improve the quality of its business processes, therefore it uses various KPIs, collects statistics on the actions of employees and controls the situation with the help of regulations. Within the company, ratings of employees by departments are maintained, there are leaderboards, regulations regulate the transfer to new positions, and bonus employees are directly proportional to their achievements.

Formulation of the problem

LiveTex has been working very effectively over the past few years, steadily increasing its client base. Employees constantly improve their skills by interacting with customers in various fields of production and services, and are deeply involved in the work of the company, offering their ideas for improving products and optimizing business processes. The company strives to seek only the best people for maximum performance and productivity, creating strong team. The system of awards, corporate university, billiards, darts, kicker, corporate parties, free lunches twice a week and much more give their positive results.

But how do you get great results? How to make employees find even ordinary routine activities interesting? How to make sure that motivation does not fall even during the gray St. Petersburg weather and bad mood? How to make employees even more eager to develop their professional qualities? After all, how can you make sure that employees can earn more by helping the company earn?

One day, the organization decided to turn its attention to gamification.

Business requirements

The company has been on the market for more than a year and is successfully developing on it, and understands that creating features for the sake of the features themselves is irrational and often only leads to an increase in costs. Therefore, before fencing the garden, the company decided to determine for itself what should grow on it, and identified the following business goals:

• Increasing the speed of mastering the functionality of the company's products by new employees. The criterion for the success of the goal is passing the product knowledge test in a period less than the current average.
• Increase the productivity of employees and departments. The criterion for the success of the goal is the change in the corresponding KPI of employees and departments in comparison with the current level in a positive direction.
• Increasing employee motivation, corporate spirit and involvement in the company's work process. The criterion for the success of the goal is an increase in a complex indicator, consisting of:
  • the number of posts, discussions and likes in the corporate network;
  • the number of ideas generated to improve the company's business processes or the functionality of its products;
  • the number of positive customer reviews of the company about the quality of service;
• Minimizing the processing time of employee indicators by automating the collection and storage of information, as well as generating reports for decision making. The criterion for the success of the goal is to reduce the time of daily operations associated with the described processes.

Having defined the goals, the company thought about the rules of the game.

Gamification

What is gamification? This is the use of game mechanics in a non-game context. Any process is presented as a game played by participants in the process, or players. The output of the process is winning the game, or completing a quest, or getting some kind of achievement. Any business process is strictly determined, i.e. the rules of the game are transparent, simple and understandable to the players. By making moves, players achieve certain results. Players can plan their moves by implementing one strategy or another. By following the rules of the game according to the chosen strategy, in the end, the players must achieve victory.

In addition to the rules of gamification, the company has identified several concepts for itself that it would like to support in the development process:

• All rewards that will be awarded to players must be given only for what is of value to the company;
• The game should be fun for the players and increase their motivation, so there should be no fines and penalties in it, and the guaranteed minimum salary should be maintained regardless of the results of the game;
• The game should gradually immerse the players in the context, and the goals become more complicated gradually as the players gain experience;
• The game should be a continuation of the company's business processes, and not an independent entity;
• Players must see the results of the game in real time;
• Players should be able to see their height statistics;
• Each player is an individual.

Taking as a basis the provisions of gamification, the proposed concepts and its own business processes, the company chose the mechanics by which the set business goals should be achieved.

Employee account

The player is at the center of any game. It is through him that the game is realized. Therefore, the company put an employee at the center of the system. Each employee has his own account, which characterizes him as a player. The account consists of several parts: information on the employee, his achievements in the form of badges, statistics of indicators aggregated by the employee, the level achieved, the number of points earned.

An employee account is intended for several purposes. Firstly, information about the employee is necessary for other employees of the company and may contain such useful information as the employee’s photo and full name, hobbies, information about education, contact details, position in the organization, job responsibilities, location of the employee in the company building. Secondly, the employee in his account can observe his progress in the professional field in real time, thereby realizing his growth. Thirdly, the employee's account displays a system of levels and their achievements depending on the tasks set, using which the employee can plan his actions to move to a new level.

Level system

The company decided to adapt several of its workflow policies and built a system of growth levels for employees depending on which department they work in. So, for example, for the acquisition department, a significant KPI is the number of attracted customers at various stages of the sales funnel, and for support departments, the number of successful customer consultations. The company presented the system of levels in the form of a tree, on which key points - levels - are indicated. For each key point, it is determined what the employee needs to do in order to achieve it. For example, attract a hundred customers who will test the product.

Reaching a level gives an employee a certain number of game points that he can spend in special store. In some cases, reaching a particular level opens up new opportunities for an employee that he can use. For example, an employee has reached a certain level, which is only possible with a large number of processed chats and successful consultations, and in fact is a guarantee that this employee is really good. In this case, reaching this level opens the employee new opportunity- increases the number of simultaneously processed chats, or gives the employee the right to use an irregular work schedule, or the employee receives personal business cards for use. At the same time, the difficulty of reaching the next levels increases.

As a result, the level system allows the employee to understand what actions he needs to take in order to improve himself as a professional within the company, and by increasing the complexity, his interest in the game continues to remain at a constant level.

growth statistics

There is nothing more positive than watching your performance grow as you play, how every day you become cooler and cooler. Therefore, the company decided to open for each employee their indicators, which are aggregated to calculate various KPIs. Growth statistics include not only the actual performance of the employee, but also those that the company expects from him. Employee growth statistics is an important tool for analysis both for the company itself and for the employee. In case of good indicators relative to the required ones, the employee receives additional points, and in case of bad indicators, an additional employee training system is connected. So, for example, if the dynamics of an employee's development is below average, the system advises him to familiarize himself with certain educational materials, which will help him increase his achievements, or re-pass some tests.

Feedback

In the company, employees use several basic products for work: operator console, corporate CRM, software for calling customers. The operator console is necessary for direct communication with site visitors and between operators, and in CRM employees perform various tasks assigned to clients. Customer call software and in Africa Customer call software.

Using all this software, employees change some of their indicators (the number of chats, the duration of voice calls, the time to complete tasks, etc.). For a moment, someone from the top management of the company imagined that he was sitting all day in the operator's console and did not see anything but a series of almost the same type of dialogues with visitors. He did not like this fleeting vision, and the company decided to show its employees their achievements in real time. Employees must understand that every action they take adds another coin to their piggy bank. Reflection is formed only with a visual response of the environment to your actions.

Badges

The company chose badges as another gaming tool to display the growth of an employee. An employee can receive badges for completely different things: for obtaining a level, for achieving some indicator that is valuable for the company, for intra-corporate competitions, for individual achievements, for passing tests, etc. Badges are given not only automatically, they can be assigned manually by the top management of the company for the special success of an employee:

• The employee has worked in the company for one month/quarter/year/3 years;
• The employee processed 100/1000/10000 chats;
• The employee attracted 10/20/30/50/100 clients;
• The employee has reached level 5/10/15/20;
• The employee won the idea contest one/two/three/five times;
• The employee has earned the "Bug Catcher" achievement;
• The employee earned the "Best Cheburek of the Week" achievement.

Quests

Quests are the game element that makes the game playable. Quest is a task with detailed description, which must be completed in order to continue the game. Completing all the quests guarantees victory in the game. Because victory in the game from the point of view of business goals is basically impossible, quests in the company are used at first when training new employees in functionality or training employees in new functionality. All quests are divided into groups depending on the functionality of the products, and their completion is sorted from simple to complex. Another division of quests in the company is into one-time and permanent ones. One-time quests are quests that an employee needs to complete only once. For example, take a call for the first time or transfer a chat to another employee for the first time. Permanent quests are usually optional, so an employee can complete them several times. These include appointment quests, in which, in order to complete them, you must return to the game at a certain time to perform some action, for example, come to work by 9.00. At the same time, the number of points earned on the quest increases depending on how successfully the quest was completed in the past.

Promotions and surprises

Another element of gamification to improve the productivity of employees, the company chose the mechanics of temporary events. The temporary event is not permanent and does not occur in the game on a permanent basis. Events of such a plan are divided into promotions and surprises. Promotions are temporary events that a company uses to improve the performance of employees or departments when it sees an overall decline in performance. For example, a promotion that triples points for attracting new customers over the next two days. Surprises are a variant of promotions that occur randomly with a given frequency factor.

Tests

Tests have become the main way for companies to evaluate their employees, whether it be knowledge of functionality, regulations, subject area, key customers, etc. Successful passing of tests is a prerequisite for reaching certain levels. The company encourages employees to retake the test, although it is awarded a much lower number of points compared to the first time. Some tests are required to be retaken.

Shop for spending points

For many things, employees receive points, which are essentially a virtual game currency that they can spend at their discretion in a special store. The company very carefully approached the construction of the assortment of the store, leaving only those goods and services that are directly related to the company's activities. No chocolates, subwoofers and mimics. Only what can help the employee in his workflow. For example, an employee can spend their points on:

• T-shirt or sweatshirt with company logo;
• Cup for tea or coffee with company logo;
• Literature related to his profile;
• Ordering pizza to the office;
• Extra day off;
• A high-quality headset with a company logo for making calls;
• Cell phone, tablet, laptop;
• etc.

Leaderboards

Leaderboards were already in the company before the introduction of the gamification mechanic. Leaderboards themselves are quite controversial. Although they spur competition and, as a result, productivity, they can also reduce it. On the one hand, it's nice to see yourself in the top lines of the overall rating, and on the other hand, the motivation in this case for the last lines tends to zero. The solution to the problem was the use of a common leaderboard and a leaderboard that displays the position of an employee in the ranking only together with employees with similar results.

Implementation results

And now the most interesting. As you already understood, in fact, there is nothing like this in LiveTex, and the entire previous post was presented as an example of the rational use of gamification mechanics, depending on the goals set by the business. We hope that some companies after reading this article will take a closer look at the possibilities of game mechanics and try to experiment with them in their business. And if not for the sake of business requirements, then just for fun.

Even the most desperate careerists get tired of routine tasks. The monotony of information and presentation methods also affects the relationship of customers to the brand. To increase team motivation and user interest in interacting with the product, many companies use gamification. If in 2010 the concept was only spreading, now the market for systems using game mechanics in business and marketing is estimated at $2.17 billion. Experts predict growth to almost $20 billion by 2023.

What is gamification?

Gamification is a way of turning a routine process into a game, such as scoring points for actions, introducing competition and ratings, difficulty levels, and so on. The purpose of these manipulations is to increase the involvement of participants and motivate them to achieve the goal.

The term appeared in 2008 and became widespread two years later, when developers began to implement reward systems in software. Today, gamification methods are used by Nike, SAP, Pearson, Salesforce, Cisco, United Airlines, Microsoft, Target, Spotify, Siemens, GE, IBM, McDonald’s and many others.

Examples of using game ideas in management can be found in history books. In 1795, Napoleon solved the problem of delivering fresh food to the army in enemy territory of Egypt with the help of the game. He announced that he would pay 12 thousand francs to the inventor of a method for long-term storage of food. A kind of competition activated the middle class and the creative elite of France, and a few years later the French confectioner proposed the simplest canning technology, which is still used today.

Gabe Zickermann, one of the ideologues of the concept of gamification, believes that in the modern world, games are absorbing other forms of entertainment and traditional forms of media. In the book Gamification in Business. How to Break Through the Noise and Grab the Attention of Employees and Customers,” he writes:

“The classic models of engagement no longer carry any weight in a multitasking world, and the number of distractions is constantly increasing, so that life becomes more and more like a game. In such a new environment, people expect increased rewards, stimulation and feedback.”

Where is gamification used?

There are two main types of gamification in the business environment and one additional type, located at the intersection of business and public interests:

1. internal or managerial. Task: employee motivation.
2. External or marketing. Goal: attract and retain customers.
3. Social or "behavioral change". Objective: to induce actions that are useful for the user when interacting with the brand.

Internal gamification

Even in Soviet enterprises, honor boards were used, which is similar to the idea of ​​corporate gamification. On the one hand, competitions within the company begin with a demonstration of KPI indicators to the team. On the other hand, gamification implies that participants are involved not out of the need to prove personal effectiveness, but out of interest. At the same time, people approach the game in different ways and pursue different benefits in the process.

Gamification expert Andrzej Mrozewski identifies several types of players. In practice, signs of different categories are combined in a person. On the Mrozhevsky site, you can determine your type using a test.

External gamification

Marketers use gaming tools to activate users and attract new customers. Games not only involve participants, but also have high virulence: participants willingly share their impressions and results in conversations with friends and subscribers on social networks. At the same time, interaction with users is not limited to contests: in the following chapters, we will separately consider marketing cases and ways to implement gamification by large companies.

Behavior-changing gamification

Usually these are public programs that are carried out by social or government organizations. They help people acquire good habits: join healthy lifestyle life, proper nutrition and sports, self-education, retirement savings and so on.

Marketing cases

Monopoly by McDonald's

Since 1987, the fast food chain has hosted a Monopoly game every year, with many other brands joining in recent years. The company offers customers for the purchase of dishes from the menu special chips, symbolizing a place on the playing field similar to the famous game of the Parker brothers.

Street names in Monopoly match real-life locations in cities. The higher the cost of orders and the frequency of visits, the more likely it is to collect a field of the same color and win prizes, including travel, cars, money. McDonald's, along with partners, spends huge sums on Monopoly, but every year it raises the percentage of sales. According to the company, thanks to the game, revenues in 2011 grew by 5.5% in just one month of the game.

In-game learning from Autodesk

Autodesk 3ds Max is a 3D modeling software used by designers and other modeling professionals. In 2012, the developer gamified a trial version of the product by releasing the educational and entertaining game Undiscovered Territory.

Users participate in a quest, which is located in different parts of the world, completing tasks and learning the functions of the program along the way. Participants are rewarded with badges for completing missions and mentioning the results on social networks. The leader of the competition receives an expensive software package Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite.

Competitions in sports achievements

In 2012, with the launch of the Nike+Fuelband app, a wave of fitness gamification began. It is based on the natural desire for sport to compete and achieve results. The application user receives daily statistics on physical activity, consumption and consumption of calories, can set goals for himself or challenge friends, and receives points for achievements. A place in the overall ranking is assigned for the number of points. A year after launch, Nike+Fuelband had 11 million users.

Game education

A fertile area for gamification is e-education. The pioneer in the game format of teaching foreign languages ​​in Russia is the LinguaLeo online service. Instead of a set of educational materials, English is presented here as a "language jungle", in which a lion named Leo becomes the user's guide, and meatballs are the virtual currency. They can "pay" for new tasks.

This is called "emotional packaging". It doesn't have to be completely playful. The task is to bring to the surface what already exists, but is not noticeable, for example, to emphasize the expertise of community members, visualize the hierarchy, rise above the routine of everyday life,” writes Ilya Kurylev, creator of the LinguaLeo game mechanics.

Email-quest "M-video"

The M-video case is an example of how game mechanics can be applied without creating a separate platform or application. In 2012, a chain of electronics stores offered customers an email quest based on the Rock Dog and LEGO: Ninjago Movie cartoons. Participants received assignments by mail, for completing them they were awarded points that can be exchanged for promotional codes with discounts.

According to the game developer, the return on investment (ROI) from the quest was 760%. 30% of the players who were not previously included in the database remained subscribers to the M-video email newsletter.

Games in SMM

Gamification for the community

Cases of using game mechanics in social networks once again confirm that a quest can be both effective and inexpensive to implement. The most obvious option is to transfer to social networks the so-called loyalty program, that is, a system of rewards for actions taken. For example, a user writes a comment - gets 10 points, a product review - an "expert" badge, takes first place in the rating table - gets on the community avatar. These techniques are also effective for the work of a community manager, whose task is to build a loyal community around the brand.

Gamified Contests

Surprising subscribers with contests on social networks is becoming more difficult. Pranks for repost have lost their credibility, and creative tasks performs too small percentage of subscribers. But contests with interesting game mechanics are much more enthusiastic.

Vasily Bogdanov, co-owner and creative director of Little Big Agency, cites the following case as an example.

The picture is uploaded as a community cover, and the contest rules are explained in the post. Users select a cell in the comments, and the designer and SMM manager change the image with open fields every 5-10 minutes - participants get instant results.

Graphic quests

In the article “10 advertising cases on Instagram”, there was an example of an adventure comic quest on the Instagram of Old Spice. To create the game, the developers made 21 profiles on the social network, placing a plot branch of the quest on each. Navigation works with the help of marks on the image.

Odnoklassniki used similar mechanics in 2014 by launching a quest dedicated to the Mail.ru Group corporate party on Instagram. In the game, which consists of photos and videos, the main character walks around the 27-storey building of the holding and is looking for a companion.

How to create a game?

There are many game mechanics used by video game developers, but not every one is applicable in a business game.

The most commonly used elements in gamification are:

• achievements (points, points, medals, bonuses) - material or virtual reward for the performed action;
• badges - virtual awards, usually graphical, that serve to measure the activity of players;
• levels - increasing statuses that open up new privileges for participants;
• leaderboards - tables displaying the ratings of the most active and successful participants in completing tasks;
• virtual currency - funds that the user receives for actions and can be used in a virtual store or exchanged for a product / service / discount from the company.

It seems that applying game mechanics is simple: it is enough to introduce a system for accruing points for a target action in which the company is interested, announce the prize fund and make a leaderboard. But the concept of "gamification" is not limited to this, if the company's goal is not to arrange a one-time action, using a game action - for example, to hold a game contest.

Before you start developing a full-fledged game, you need to:

1. Determine the need that the game should satisfy. What metrics do you want to achieve?
2. Assess the target audience, types of "gamers" and their interests. What characters, tasks and rewards will they be interested in?
3. Find a platform for implementation. Will you create a website or app specifically for the game, or will you use social media or email?
4. Analyze monetization opportunities. How will investments in development and prizes for leaders pay off?

Finally, in a game whose goal is to increase user engagement, it is important interesting scenario and exciting tasks that match the goals. Here, success depends on the originality of the ideas of the author of the game, the characteristics of the product and the preferences of the audience. The best result will be the involvement of a game practitioner in the marketing team - a specialist with experience in game development and a deep understanding of the psychology of gamers.

The Future of Gamification

Representatives of the British organization Gamification Nation believe that now companies are only beginning to realize what gamification is in practice, while ceasing to perceive gaming methods in business as separate marketing tricks.

Experts predict that the concept will continue to spread on social networks, websites and customer-facing applications. Particular attention should be paid to the experience of developers in Asian countries, where the appetite for the use of gaming techniques in non-gaming processes is the highest, and the specialists are very resourceful.

In Russia, the concept and its practical application are spreading more slowly, so there is every chance to surprise the market with an original game promotion strategy. Or your team - a gamified workflow. The main thing is not to play too much!

Surely, many employers wondered: “How to motivate employees if work has become a routine and standard options don't work anymore?" There are two options here: either leave everything as it is, or try new options for interacting with subordinates.

Recently, the use of gamification in workflows has become more and more often considered as a lifeline. According to experts, the elements of the game help to improve the performance and quality of work of employees, but you should not overdo it otherwise the “pluses” can turn into “minuses”.

Gamification in Workflows: A Motivation Tool for Employees?

Sooner or later, there comes a moment when the work begins to resemble a routine, the performance of the same duties bothers, but they have to be fulfilled, since there are no better prospects on the horizon. No matter how hard the employer tries to motivate the “unstuck” employees, nothing happens: the work is done mediocre, without a twinkle. What can you do? Either everything remains in its place, or there is a search for a possible way out of the current situation and a reassessment of values, approaches to work. It is for such a critical point that the option with gamification of workflows is suitable.

By itself, the concept of "gamification" (or gamification) means the application of approaches specific to computer games in software tools for non-gaming processes of the company in order to increase labor productivity, employee involvement in solving work tasks. According to a study by the Research Center of the Imperiya Kadrov management company, 97% of employers in the Russian labor market have come across this term. At the same time, it should be noted that 52% of them are familiar with the essence of the concept, and 35% use this method in their work.

Now from words to practice. 87% of company representatives are sure that workflow gamification can serve as an effective method of staff motivation. And 81% believe that the presence of elements of the game in the workplace contributes to the productivity and quality of work of employees. But is it really so?

“Like any business, the implementation of gamification can be done well, or it can be done somehow. There have been cases when the introduction of ERP-systems brought the company to bankruptcy. But if gamification is built correctly, then the effect is purely positive,” comments Denis Kaminsky, partner at FutureToday. “If the system (incentive model) is focused on productivity growth, then productivity grows, if on quality growth, then quality grows, if on both, then both.”

“In my opinion, a subjective opinion on this matter has no power, only facts have power. The use of gamification by our clients and many other companies that are embarking on this path on their own confirm that properly applied gamification can significantly increase labor productivity and other metrics of staff work,” emphasizes Evgeniya Lyubko, Gingerbread Project Development Director. — For example, thanks to the practice of applying various ratings, the company Interior Lavka achieved a 400% increase in KPI. I would also like to highlight the experience of the Kazakh Entrepreneurship Development Fund “Damu”. With the help of gamified “floating”, this state-owned company achieved a 3.5-fold increase in KPI (!).”

“Judging by our company and the companies of my colleagues working in the fashion retail segment, gamification has become an integral tool not only to improve the quality of work of employees, but also a means of optimizing business processes. To give just one example, at the beginning of the year we launched the “Better Service to Our Customers” motivational game, which was attended by employees from more than 160 stores. The essence of the game is that employees, collecting information about the best world practices in the field of service (we have the opportunity to exchange information with employees from other countries of the world) and applying this in their daily work, play a kind of quest. Every month, employees of one of the European or Asian representative offices of our company hold remote master classes, where they share their technologies and standards in the field of working with customers. Our employees take the best they can from our market and implement these principles and technologies into their daily work. Thus, we planned to make the “main focus” of this year on the quality work of employees with clients and, in general, a significant improvement in the quality of work,” says Alexey Averyanov, HR Director at Ecco Shoes, a member of the Labor Market Experts non-profit partnership. “As a result, we received a huge number of excellent proposals for improving customer service standards, proposals for improving business processes and recruitment, which ultimately led to a significant increase in sales. Although the game is still in full swing (the game is designed for 12 months, where every month employees get acquainted with the experience of working in other representative offices ... for example, in September we introduced the experience of colleagues from Japan, and in October from the UK), we can already say that that the program far exceeded our expectations. Such "fun", "emotional drive", according to our employees, they have not experienced for a long time, and the company received high external loyalty, involvement and excellent business indicators for the first half of the year. This is just a small example, although we use similar principles not only in working with clients, but also in all processes of corporate culture development (selection and adaptation, training, etc.). We can say that over the past 1-2 years, gamification has become a "calling card" for the HR department of our company. Of course, this would not have been possible if there was not a noticeable increase in confirmed business indicators (we even had to revise KPI upwards for most positions).”

Gamification in workflows: companies that play games...

Specific examples show that the use of elements of the game in workflows brings good results. But far from all companies are reaping: the practice of using gamification in the Russian labor market is not so widespread. As noted earlier, only a third of companies (35%) have experience in this area. However, the "coverage zone" can be somewhat expanded due to statistics on employers' plans for the near future. So, when discussing plans for introducing gamification within the framework of the mentioned study, 16% of respondents admitted that they already use this method in the company, and 10% said that they had developed all the necessary materials and the only thing left was their implementation. Another 36% reported that they plan to use gamification in their work in the future, but have not thought about it in detail yet.

But is gamification suitable for all companies, regardless of their field of activity? According to the surveyed employers, the introduction of game mechanisms will be relevant for retail trade (24%); FMCG (19%); IT/telecom (18%); finance, media, consulting, industrial equipment (3% each). But 27% thought that the use of gamification can be relevant for any company and the success of technology implementation does not depend on the industry of the enterprise. However, they add that the implementation itself is directly dependent on the internal culture of the organization.

Experts believe that gamification is a recent trend and its popularity in the Russian market is just beginning to gain momentum. “Gamification is definitely a trend, especially for big brands. The main customers of the programs are IT corporations, banks, and the advertising sector. At the same time, the share of companies using gamification is still generally small. Not everyone can apply to themselves, implement, train managers, etc. The market has potential as traditional approaches become obsolete. The effectiveness of learning always depends directly on emotional involvement, so the influence of traditional seminars, webinars and other familiar forms is gradually fading away. Due to the emotional element, the gamification method shows a good result: people are interested in new things, they are more willing to get involved in the process,” says Anna Chukseeva, head of public relations at the Job.ru Internet resource.

“So far, the practice of using gamification in our country is not widespread. There is high interest, but also big doubts. The market is at the stage of accumulation of the evidence base, and each new practical case opens the door to gamification for new companies,” says Evgeniya Lyubko.

“The practice is not yet very common, but is gaining momentum. Most of all, it is common in office activities, in production, in construction, in science - much less so, ”says Denis Kaminsky.

However, if we focus on indicators for individual industries, then the degree of “penetration” of game elements into the workflow of companies can be significant compared to the situation on the market as a whole. “The use of gamification is a fairly common practice. I believe that about 50% of Russian companies use certain elements. Traditionally, this practice is more pronounced in the FMCG segment, digital and fashion retail, as well as in IT companies. This is primarily due to the fact that average age As a rule, employees are younger than employees at manufacturing enterprises, although recently “bright” elements of gamification have appeared at enterprises,” Aleksey Averyanov suggests.

“In the oil and gas industry, the practice of gamification is in demand and is used for top management and key personnel,” says Nadezhda Kulygina, head of the department for organizing and motivating work at Enter Engineering.

Gamification in Workflows: Play Can't Be Worked

The process of penetration of gamification into the masses is slowed down by stop factors - fears and fears that employers have when they get acquainted with this motivation tool. In the course of a study by the Research Center of the Imperia Kadrov management company, it turned out that many representatives of organizations (42%) see the main drawback of gamification in its complexity and believe that most firms will not be able to cope with its correct practical application. 18% are inclined to believe that turning work into a game can cause employees to protest and criticize management. 13% are sure that gamification in reality gives only a short-term increase in work, and 8% believe that it quickly gets boring and “boring”. Only 8% of employers talk about the high cost of gamification. Another 3% believe that the introduction of game elements in work processes can give rise to strong competition between employees and on this basis conflicts will arise in the team.

But, as they say, everything is known in comparison. These negative beliefs of the survey respondents can be diluted by the fact that only 3% of respondents who have had an unsuccessful experience in mastering gamification refuse to further implement it in their work processes. So, not everything is so bad: the more practical knowledge and experience accumulates in using this tool, the more likely it is to prepare for “tense sections” and bypass weaknesses.

According to experts, a balanced approach and proper prioritization will help to solve a problem with problematic moments. “Unfortunately, there are drawbacks to gamification. In my opinion, the most important drawback that I had to face is the increase in conflict in the team. People take the results of the game too seriously, get offended, try to “revenge” the competitor. Another drawback is that not all employees are ready to join the game, becoming bystanders, laughing at the rest. We were able to seriously “smooth out” such effects when we began to independently develop programs (taking into account the wishes of our employees and good internal communication) and, most importantly, launch several different programs at the same time (with a clear and understandable evaluation and reward system) so that people can choose for themselves the most relevant and interesting programs,” Alexey Averyanov shares his experience. — This step allowed us to involve people who used to be skeptical about many innovations. The best reward for us is when employees say that our company is “so interesting and exciting to work with”. And there are more and more such reviews, which means that we will continue to improve the techniques and tools of gamification.”

“Any system gives rise to the desire to break it, to bypass it. Here, as elsewhere, the rule “what is measured is done” is true. And if you can achieve the desired indicator in a simpler way, then there is a high probability of erroneous motivation. For example, in one call center, bonuses were paid for a successfully received call, and a call was considered successfully received, during which both parties said something and which lasted at least 3 seconds. As a result, it turned out that one of the most successful managers simply picked up the phone, said “Good afternoon, how can I help you?”, listened to the answer and hung up. According to statistics, he had a lot of answered calls,” Denis Kaminsky gives an example.

“I believe that one of the significant drawbacks when using gamification is the wrong choice of tools for tasks. For example, rating programmers by the number of closed tasks can cause a revolution in the company, while in the sales department a similar tool will lead to a significant increase in turnover,” Evgeniya Lyubko compares.

“The practice itself is not always positively perceived by top management, while I did not notice any shortcomings affecting the staff. On the contrary, as a rule, the employees who took part in the event begin to understand each other better,” notes Nadezhda Kulygina.

Gamification in workflows: the games companies are playing...

Now let's move from the "cons" to the "pluses". Many interviewed employers agree that gamification increases productivity if it affects certain employee incentives. But already at the stage of choosing specific incentives, the points of view of company leaders diverge. So, 73% suggest using an incentive for development and achievement (an internal incentive for progress, developing skills and overcoming obstacles), 52% - an incentive for the development of creativity and feedback (an employee sees the results of his own creativity and receives feedback on it), 42% - an incentive social recognition and involvement (the result is achieved due to the desire of a specialist to achieve the same level and then surpass colleagues), 18% - a stimulus of curiosity and unpredictability (the desire to understand what is really happening), 9% - a stimulus of possession and ownership (desire to have something), 3% - an incentive of epic value and vocation (when an employee believes that he was chosen for a specific mission).

The stimulus of influence is a kind of key that helps to achieve the intended goal. However, sometimes the knowledge that it exists is not enough to open the desired lock, an understanding of the mechanism of work and the procedure is required. The mechanism in this case is the version of the game in which the employees of the company participate. Here it is important not to make a mistake with the option, otherwise the desired result will remain only in the plans. Experts advise to pay attention to those games that effectively solved the tasks.

“There is a set of tools for every task. Sales and any other objectively measurable indicators are perfectly driven by competitions (ratings), and this tool works especially well if it is not just a rating drawn on a board, but also a vivid game metaphor (as in the case of the Damu Entrepreneurship Development Fund). Popularization of mentoring, referral programs, participation in various projects are well catalyzed by badges. A virtual currency can either directly affect productivity, provided that the gaming “economy” is built correctly, or it can form a friendly atmosphere of support and cooperation in the company, reduce the number of conflicts, unite people if used as a means of mutual encouragement (peer-2-peer recognition). I'm not talking about the possibilities of combining different tools. :) The main rule here is that there is no universal solution. But there is a rich and fairly simple toolkit that, when used correctly, gives impressive results,” notes Evgenia Lyubko.

“There is a huge variety of game options. Most often, these are competitions in certain parameters (business indicators and compliance with company values) and earning points and “badges”, which are then exchanged for some interesting benefits, for example, the ability to come to work 1 hour later or leave earlier on Friday, if the employee scored a certain number of points. One of the values ​​of our company is innovation. We are always trying to improve our processes, make them perfect, as well as convenient and simple. The Funnel project, which was launched in the company, is aimed at increasing the proactivity and innovation of our employees. Any employee can suggest an idea or improvement in the processes, which, in his opinion, will have a positive impact on the efficiency and quality of work. These "ideas" are posted on the corporate portal, and if the idea gains a certain number of "likes", the employee receives an "Einstein" badge and 100 points, which he can spend at his discretion in the company's cafeteria or exchange for 1 day off, as well as in another way, for example, a trip home / from home in a corporate car with a driver, i.e. all possible options provided for by our Motivation Policy (there are more than 500 such options, everyone can choose what he “likes”),” says Alexey Averyanov. — One of the recent proposals is to make workshops for free individual “fitting” of shoes in our retail outlets. It's no secret that our customers have their own individual shoe requirements, and now, by implementing this offer, we can satisfy the most demanding requests free of charge. Another pride of ours is a quest game after training for beginners. Employees who have completed the training course work in their retail outlets, but at the same time they complete tasks based on the results of the training within 1 month. Territorial managers check the development of skills, evaluate the work with clients, sum up the results and the winners of the game receive an excellent prize. I can say that engaging employees in learning through play is the fastest and most effective way to learn.”

“In my practice, we implemented games aimed at developing staff communication skills, the ability to give feedback and ask the right questions. Among them were: a) team games where you need to do something as a team: build a tower from improvised materials, write a poem in a certain amount of time on a given topic or with certain words, develop a business plan or a presentation of a virtual project and other options in a certain time; b) games where an employee must join an existing team, for example, pass an interview in a virtual project, Nadezhda Kulygina lists. “It is very important, in my opinion, not only to organize an event, to hold it, but also to get feedback from the participants, to hear the opinion of colleagues about the event.”

"Works best game mechanics"Achievement", similar to the Soviet board of honor. Public selection of a person always gives a result, ”Denis Kaminsky insists.

The positive experience of participating in collective games within the office / production space can bring a breath of fresh air into the existing workflow, which can diversify the usual course of affairs, add new ideas and stir up the professional potential of employees. If game elements bring novelty to the working atmosphere, give impetus and drive for new professional achievements, then it’s a sin not to take advantage of this. The most important thing is not to overdo it and direct the energy that has appeared in a peaceful direction. ;)