THE GAME’S THE THING
Gamification is increasingly being used in the business world for
inspiring employees and customers. José Esteves explains how and why.
Employee engagement is in crisis. For years, employee engagement scores have
declined despite the millions of dollars companies invest to boost sagging workforce
morale. A recent Gallup survey found that 71 percent of employees are not engaged
in their work and are less productive as a result. Disengagement is endemic across
all demographics (age, gender, education and incomes).
What to do? Typically, executives try to engage their employees by spending more
time with them. Some exhort employees to "try harder". Such approaches are usually
ineffectual.
Engagement is related to the extent with which support, trust,
recognition, mission and values actually inspire and drive an employee’s daily
activities and interactions.
And here is where enterprise gamification can help companies improve employee
engagement.
Simply, enterprise gamification is the use of game-type thinking, game-design
techniques and mechanics to solve problems and to amplify employee engagement
in desired behaviors in a non-game context.
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Playing the Game
For some the very thought of social gaming is anathema to a working environment.
But, there is an important difference between “playing” and “gaming”: while playing
is mainly an entertaining activity which relates simply to having fun, gaming
attempts to achieve a set of goals. Thus, games should not be play; yet don’t let that
imply they do not require play.
For executive skeptics, it is worth noting that game dynamics have long been used to
inspire performance and engagement among employees, salespeople, as well as
among customer service representatives, partners and suppliers. In reality the
workplace is already filled with games and game elements (levelling up, badges,
leaderboards): think of employee of the month, selling compensation mechanisms,
annual bonuses or career development plans. But most of these examples are merely
incentive systems based on extrinsic rewards that work very well for a short period.
In contrast, gamification focuses on intrinsic motivations, which arise from within –
doing something because you want to.
With new technologies such as social media, mobile technology and geolocation,
gamification can be designed in a way to be more interactive, more collaborative,
more real-time and dynamic.
And it works. Firms like IBM are getting a return on their investment by gamifying
some of their business activities. In order to reduce the costs of internal projects,
IBM’s Social Laboratory gamified its documentation translation process by awarding
points to employees who helped translate documents. The best employees used
points to earn money for their charities. The results were improved accuracy,
reduced internal project time and reduced costs – IBM saved millions in translation
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costs. But through this process, IBM did much more: it made employees better
motivated and happier from their successful performance.
Good Gaming Practice
So, what is good practice for using games? And how can we best design the games we
play in the workplace?
Our research analyzed how 21 firms used gamification. We found that gamification
has moved from simply promoting competition, using rewards and compensation
management, to become a much more sophisticated and subtle tool implemented to
influence and change the behavior of employees.
Here are three ways in which firms can learn from the gamification activities of
successful companies:
1. Expanding Symbolic Capital
Monetary rewards are easy to implement but they are far less meaningful or
memorable. Instead, enterprise gamification focuses on non-monetary rewards and
it is framed as a process delivering status symbolic prizes for the employees. Status
and recognition are important motivators to invigorate employee engagement. The
French sociologist, Pierre Bourdieu defined these status symbols as symbolic
capital, the way a person is known and recognized and the embodiment of: standing,
good name, honour, fame, prestige and reputation. But status is only rewarding
when others are aware of it. Thus, it is important to use gaming techniques that
create opportunities for status conveyance.
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SAP decided to build a contributor recognition program within the SAP community
network (SCN), an online social network of over 2.5 million SAP professionals. The
aim was to encourage a spirit of collaboration, knowledge sharing and networking.
SCN is a pure example of symbolic capital implementation in a business context by
using some game mechanics (points, status levels, badges and leaderboards). The
contributor recognition program allows users to earn community points for every
contribution they make, which then becomes an indicator of status in the SCN
community. Different types of contributions (answer questions, blog posts, wiki
contributions, e-learning videos) receive different number of points. Additional
points are received when community members recognize the value of contributions
by using “Like,” “Rate,” and “Share” features. These feedback points attempt to
motivate contributors to provide content that is useful for the community. SCN uses
different badges that indicate the different levels of Active Contributors (Bronze,
Silver, Gold, and Platinum). Users only need 250 points to reach the initial level of
Bronze Active Contributor, but then they need to work hard to gain recognition as a
Top Contributor in their field of expertise. The ultimate goal is to get a high
reputation and prestige on the SCN site increasing contributor’s community
visibility which can positively impact contributor’s career. For example, recruiters
and hiring managers are looking for SCN points on resumes, to screen applicants
and interviewing those candidates first.
SCN scores are also tallied by field of expertise. Anyone who has played competitive
sport will recognize the power of local leaderboards. Having local league tables gives
you a chance to shine against your immediate competition.
If contributors are part of their company’s team then, their individual points are
aggregated into the company score, and SAP publishes a leaderboard of top
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companies participating on SCN to drive competition between companies. SAP
customers and partners looking for SAP experts use individual and company
rankings on SCN to determine who they should talk to. This SCN score impact had a
sided effect on employee evaluation systems. Some companies to engage their
employees on SCN are adding SCN points to employee’s performance evaluation.
SCN gamification also promotes advocacy engagement enhancing participants’
knowledge and skills through active sharing of ideas and experiences, and improving
users writing ability.
SAP measures SCN success by monitoring the member’s level of engagement and the
quality of that engagement. SCN has more than 1,2 million unique visitors per
month, 3,000 discussion posts per day and 375 different topic categories.
Reinforcement - Badges are another way to improve symbolic capital. Creating a
badge lets people creatively recognize successes in their own words. Badges then
have a shared meaning, creating trusted indicators of achievement which increase
employee’s symbolic capital. Some studies show that a combination of highprobability small rewards, with a low-probability large rewards satisfy both the
skeptical and optimistic sides of the brain. You get frequent periodic reinforcement
coupled with the lottery-like chance of big winnings. Ford’s Profession Performance
Program (P2P) is a very good example of reinforcement elements. The overall theme
for the game mechanics was the Ford Cup, a race to the finish and the score was
measured in racing performance measurements. Participants actually competed
with learning. Each “garage” had a “trophy case” where participants could show off
the badges they earned. Employees earned a badge for performing a variety of
actions: watch an e-learning material, watch a video, participate in a discussion
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forum. Badges were aligned to specific business goals. The success of the program
has resulted in increased behaviour to engage in informal learning. The game is
continuously evolving: as business goals change, so do badges. By modifying the
game over time, a culture of continuous engagement is created which keeps the
game sustainable, fresh and new
Different levels, different engagement – on many occasions, the prizes, gift
cards and badges are simply not enough. Sometimes players just want to participate,
learn and improve some skills. Game levels therefore establish a sense of progress.
By accepting that players will be at varying stages at any given time, a company can
show the depth of mastery people have achieved pertaining to a certain skill or a
process. Playing games that are too difficult is not fun. But playing games that are
too easy is not fun either. The key aspect here is to design different levels that
provide achievable goals and lead the player to engage in more activities so he or she
can eventually move on to the next level.
Also we can consider two levels of
engagement: the individual level, which usual entails self-exploration and selfexpression, and the social interaction level which fosters collaboration and
cooperation. Sometimes gaming processes combine both.
Many companies are still struggling to develop effective intranets that engage
employees. One solution may be gamifying their intranets by using Jive, a social
intranet platform which combines social interaction and gamification features, such
as role-based missions, team-based goals and competitions, status levels and badges,
real-time feedback and rewards, and integration with collaboration tools. Jive allows
the tracking dozens of employee actions including document creation and editing,
content sharing, search capabilities, recommendations and control levels for
security, privacy, permissions and compliance. Employees can collaborate at every
level: team, departmental and cross-organizational. Jive offers quick and easy
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onboarding challenges for new community members and then the opportunity to
design different game levels for encouraging Jive usage and mastery.
Feedback/Juiciness - Feedback is an elemental and constant mechanism in
gamification. It is what informs players that they have done the right thing and/or
provides information that helps them thoroughly learn the content. By using realtime feedback, companies can ensure that a player knows his or her progress toward
the goal, the amount of life or energy left, location, time remaining, stuff collected
and even how other players are doing. Also, the game can be programmed to provide
alerts regarding the possible impact of their next actions. An excellent way to
increase symbolic capital is by amplifying positive behaviors that already exist by
using juicy feedback mechanisms. A “juicy feedback” occurs when a small action
produces a surprisingly large reaction. Simple things like giving others thanks for
meaningful achievements, help, etc. are efficient ways to increase recognition and
thus increase motivation.
A business problem that enterprise gamification can improve is employee
performance management. High-performing companies such as Facebook, Spotify,
Linkedin and GLT Group are using Salesforce Rypple, a web-based social
performance platform that allows employees to create and compete in challenges,
receive real-time feedback and recognition from co-workers, see what others are
working on, and find where needed skills may exist within an organization. Rypple is
not a game, but it was developed with several game design principles in mind to
foster intrinsic motivations
2. Focusing on Intrinsic Motivations
The sense of fun in gaming is the fuel for intrinsic motivations – experiences of
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competence, self-efficacy, mastery, recognition and social status rather than
monetary reward. This is what drives profound commitment and sense of ownership
needed for a truly engaged and innovative workforce.
Lack of motivation is one of the main reasons for the failure in adopting some
business tools like CRM. Although the adoption of CRM applications has been
shown to dramatically enhance sales performance and increase company revenue,
sales people still frequently resist incorporating these tools into their everyday work
tasks. Bunchball, a leading provider of gamification tools, has created Nitro
Flamethrower which can be used with the CRM system, salesforce.com. Nitro is
embedded in the sales force automation system. It improves data quality and
speeds-up data entry -- very often a source of conflict between sales representatives
and their managers. For example, Nitro can be set up so that every closed sale
awards a salesperson 500 points. The salesperson can then examine their points
total and the rewards others have received. Regional or workgroup competitions
between teams can also be used.
Nitro helps to improve the sense of meaningfulness to work outcomes, sense of
competence, and relatedness (feeling connected with others and having a sense of
belonging at both the individual and the community level) to build strong intrinsic
motivations and to engage employees.
3. Enhancing Eudaimonia
Enterprise gamification helps employees accomplishing aspirational goals which
keeps people motivated and focused. Aspirational goals also promote Eudaimonia, a
Greek word describing a state in which an individual experiences happiness by
successfully performing their moral duties. IBM document translation gamification
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is a good example of promoting eudaimonia. Elsewhere, based on an eudaimonic
model, SAP employees play a game that encourages carpooling. Employees gain
points by entering information that matches carpooling partners. The benefits are
multiple - the game takes cars off the road while building employee social ties, and
SAP saves money since many of the vehicles are firm cars.
Looking at the Dark Side
Enterprise gamification may seem like employee engagement wonderland but there
are drawbacks. Besides the typical issues of time involvement, gamification can be
perceived as a new form of control and pressure which is known as exploitationware.
For example, leader boards are an efficient way to foster recognition but, depending
on the context, leader boards can be viewed as another form of control and pressure
because they can impact employee reputation, popularity, and credibility. The usage
of leader boards might in fact hinder sales people not because of the engagement of
the game but because of social pressure to continuing playing the game – there is
pressure because the employee knows that if he or she stops playing the game, it will
impact their reputation.
Leader boards and other game mechanics that are
associated with the pressure to “show off” symbols, is simply the need for preserving
one’s status quo which can have a negative effect on employee behavior.
Some game dynamics cause a huge pressure on users to continuously accept
requests or involve them in a set of activities which demand a lot of time and
dedication. Thus, a poorly designed gamification strategy can unfortunately entangle
users in a web of social obligations, creating social pressure which is another form of
symbolic violence with an unnoticed sense of domination. The other problem is that
gamified applications
“pointsification”
aren’t necessarily fun. Some of them are simple
processes
that
aren’t
necessarily
reinforcing
behavioral
improvements. On the contrary, they may promote cheating to earn points easily. It
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is important not to fall into the trap of rewarding employees too easily or excessively
without a meaningful reason. Finally, it is important that enterprise gamification
solutions must be scaled along a time frame -- games must be kept fresh or
engagement will drop.
José Esteves (jose.esteves@ie.edu) is Professor of Information Systems at IE
business school, Madrid, where he has been based since 2004. He
received his Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Universidad
Politécnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, and degrees in Information
Systems from Universidade do Minho, Portugal, and a Diploma in
Business Administration from Instituto Superior de Tecnología
Empresarial, Porto, Portugal. He is one of Europe’s foremost experts on
the impact of technology on organizations.
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