Gamification? You mean we get to play games at work all day long?
Well yes, but before you reach for the PS4 controller, allow me to explain.
You see a very clever man named Nick Pelling coined the term ‘Gamification’ back in 2002. Since then companies far and wide have introduced gamification applications into their internal systems, such as Salesforce, SAP, Workday, Microsoft, Adobe, Nike and Starbucks that allows employees to enter a ‘playful’ experience, thereby transforming the way they work.
Gamification itself, is an empathy based approach for introducing, transforming and operating a system that allows ‘players‘ to experience a real sense of achievement during the performance of their job role. And due to the success that businesses have seen from using gamification, it is now becoming prevalent in the marketing job function too.
So why is Gamification used?
Gamifications have many elements to it, for example, point scoring, competition, rules of play, motivation and achieving set goals by completing tasks in a whole new way. This is what makes gamification so incredibly powerful. It has been scientifically proven to not only increase overall employee health, motivation and development in the workplace, but also educates employees on in-house products and recording more accurate sales / data.
Great for Data Entry
Place yourself into the shoes of your data clerk. They have thousands of names, numbers and details to enter into the database daily. And let’s face it, the work can feel slightly mundane at times. After all what’s the real point! As a consequence, individuals can become demotivated over time and the quality of the data being recorded drops. So what better way improve the quality of data they input, then to give them an exciting incentive? Gamification can be as simple as collecting badges (as with Badgeville) when data is recorded correctly, which could go on to lead to bonuses for the employee.
Good for Marketing
The simple techniques behind the science of gamification is about leverage people’s natural desires for socialising, taking full advantage of social media exposure. Learning and mastering company products, or delivery a great customer service, or knowledge sharing utilises gamification to tap into the natural human feelings of winning and achievement. And through giving immediate feedback, which is considered to be the ‘secret sauce to success’, leads to status for the individual within their peer groups.
Resource On Demand (ROD) is Europe’s first specialist Salesforce Recruitment Agency. They were founded in 2007 and are highly respected across the entire Salesforce ecosystem. Their specialist areas of recruitment include; Salesforce (SFDC); digital marketing and marketing automation technologies, which include Eloqua, Marketo, ExactTarget and Pardot; Human Capital Management (HCM) technologies such as Workday and SAP HCM and SuccessFactors. For more information contact ROD on rod@resourceondemand.com or on 020 8123 7769.