11 Powerful Gamification Techniques for Better Engagement

Gamification is an increasingly popular strategy, where game mechanics (such as leaderboards, points, levels, and badges) are incorporated into a non-game context, such as a business setting.

But what are some gamification techniques, how do they keep users engaged, and how can they benefit an enterprise?

What Are Gamification Techniques?

Gamification techniques are the elements that tap into two motivators, intrinsic and extrinsic, to keep users motivated and engaged.

An intrinsic motivator is for personal, internal rewards, such as learning more about a subject of interest, or simply the enjoyment of an action or process. Extrinsic motivators spur action for external rewards, such as earning prizes or being at the top of a leaderboard.

How Can Gamification Techniques Impact Employee Performance?

Gamification techniques boost user motivation, and in turn, will increase engagement and improve performance.

This is because when employees are more engaged with their work, they are more focused. Incorporating gamification techniques into the workday also adds an element of fun and enjoyment, which can boost the mood and the culture. This makes for happier (and more productive and high-performing) teams.

Top 11 Gamification Techniques

There are many gamification techniques for corporate training, to improve the user experience, and to boost productivity. Below are a few gamification techniques examples:

Challenges, Quests, and Storytelling

An ongoing narrative is a major gamification technique, and the storyline involves quests and challenges (or missions).

This is the action space where users will complete quests as part of a larger path to completing a goal. In a business context, this can be completing a certain number of learning modules or selling a specific number of products (or hitting a monetary amount in sales) in a month.

Progress Tracking and Leveling Up

Progress bars between levels are essential to keeping users motivated and engaged. When users know where they are relative to completing a goal and passing a level and know what they need to do to reach it, they will be motivated to achieve that goal even faster.

In a business setting, such as a contact centre or BPO, offering real-time performance insights helps guide employees as they work to achieve their goals.

Rewards and Incentives

Incentivizing goals helps keep users motivated and engaged. And when a user completes a goal, giving that user recognition and rewards goes a long way to keeping them motivated and engaged for the long term.

This can be as simple as a manager giving kudos, and the user receiving points toward real-world prizes. When users are getting started, include some short-term wins that can be completed quickly to help build confidence and motivational momentum.

Tip: Recognizing employees for achieving a goal, or simply for a job well done, is just as important as course-correcting. When exploring gamification techniques for the business, look for a platform that offers managers clear insights into daily actions, such as offering kudos.

Setting Clear Goals

In order to successfully work to complete challenges and level up, users must know what is expected of them. When implementing gamification techniques for business, make sure that each goal is aligned with the employee’s experience and tenure, and is relevant to their goals.

Determine these goals by knowing what you want to be accomplished, setting the appropriate benchmarks, and monitoring activity to determine if goals are too easy or difficult to reach, and if they are relevant to users.

Microlearning

Microlearning is a learning and development-focused gamification technique that provides bite-sized learning content.

As a gamification technique for business, for example, microlearning can supplement longer-form training materials by breaking down the information and including quizzes and knowledge checks.

This process helps fight the forgetting curve, enabling learners to better retain their new information and skills.

Retaining knowledge and being able to apply newly learned skills to daily tasks is also a critical element in achieving gamified goals. (Tip: Leverage generative AI to create learning materials quickly and at scale.)

Leaderboards

Leaderboards are one of the most commonly used gamification techniques and showcase the top performers over a given period of time. For instance, a leaderboard might show the top 10 agents who sold the most product upgrades in a week.

Tip: a leaderboard alone will usually feature the same top 5% of performers, which can be demotivating to others over time. To truly keep employees motivated, implement segmented leaderboards, celebrating different milestones and achievements so everyone has a chance to shine.

Points

Points are awarded for completing certain actions and achieving goals. These help advance users to new levels, unlocking awards, and can go toward real-life prizes, such as company swag, gift cards, lunch with the CEO, and other rewards. (Tip: Keep the rewards varied and meaningful so that users are motivated to win!)

Badges

This visual swag represents a user’s achievements and serves as a status symbol. Badges are earned for various achievements and for reaching specific milestones that are relevant to organizational and cultural goals.

For instance, employees who share tips and advice with their colleagues might earn a Sage Badge. By locking badges (but making them visible) and creating new ones, you help drive user motivation.

Healthy Competition

While a competitive environment might not always sound like a positive thing, it can be as a gamification technique for business.

Promoting a healthy sense of competition between individuals and teams with achievable goals can increase motivation and truly engage employees and build camaraderie within a team.

This can be a sales contest between teams, or perhaps a contest for who completed the most learning that week. Individuals can also compete against themselves, such as beating their own outbound sales numbers from the previous week.

Social Interaction and Collaboration

A social and collaborative element is a critical gamification technique example. By making the experience social, users not only feel a sense of community and camaraderie, but they are better able to achieve their goals.

As a gamification technique for business, this can involve longer-term employees sharing their on-the-job tips. Contributors earn points for sharing their tips (and perhaps a badge when sharing a certain number of tips) and users can vote on, or offer a kudos/thanks, for tips they find helpful.

Personalization

The gamified experience should be personal and guided. For instance, when applying gamification techniques for business, goals and learning initiatives should be tailored to the employee’s tenure and role.

Consider leveraging AI to spot learning and knowledge gaps so that receives relevant microlearning modules.

Finally, add smaller, personalized touches. Elements such as avatars and profiles help users express themselves, are easily customized, and add to the user experience.

What Is the Impact You Will See If You Apply the Right Gamification Technique?

Applying the right gamification techniques to goals will bring a myriad of benefits, including:

• Increased employee motivation
• Better engagement
• Accelerated time to proficiency
• Reinforced learning
• Improved performance
• Lower attrition
• Higher customer satisfaction scores, including CSAT and NPS

Performance Management Gamification Platform

The Centrical Performance eXperience platform leverages advanced gamification and AI as part of a comprehensive approach to the employee experience, which includes AI-powered microlearning, augmented coaching, real-time performance insights, and more.

When it comes to gamification techniques for corporate training, one customer reported that “agent awareness of new information rose from 23% to 89% with agents…able to apply new knowledge in their work.”

Another customer reported that they experienced 40% faster onboarding and 92% learning program NPS.

Customers also experience a 15% increase in CSAT and FCR scores, a 30% reduction in early attrition, and an 18% increase in order value.

Gamification Techniques: Summary and Key Takeaways

Gamification is gaining popularity with organizations across industries as a strategy to motivate and engage employees

When gamification techniques for business and corporate training are implemented thoughtfully, businesses can reap organizational-wide benefits. Here are a few summary points:

• Gamification is the use of game mechanics and principles applied to non-game settings, such as a business.
• Gamification techniques can vary but include elements that tap into both intrinsic and extrinsic motivators, keeping users motivated and engaged.
• Gamification techniques examples include progress tracking and leveling up, rewards and incentives, social interaction and collaboration, challenges, quests, storytelling, and other elements.
• The benefits from implementing gamification techniques for businesses include motivated and engaged users, higher performance, better knowledge retention, and reduced attrition.

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