Businesses Betting Big on Engagement through Gaming
Improving employee satisfaction and productivity.
Combining work and play might sound counterintuitive, but companies that do so have noticed measurable results. Samsung, for instance, mixed frivolity with serious business initiatives when it created the social loyalty program Samsung Nation through the behavior platform Badgeville. The purpose? To grow its user-generated content and traffic on its global website. Fueling competition, the game lets users level up, unlock badges and gain subsequent rewards and recognition. Samsung, in return, saw 66 percent more users submitting 447 percent more product answers on its global website.
Companies could use rewards and competition commonly found in the gaming world to make tasks such as management training, data entry and brainstorming seem less like work. You might let your team members receive points or badges for completing jobs or meeting deadlines for assignments. You could also use leaderboards to let team players view each other's scores, to encourage friendly competition and to motivate performance.
Providing excellent learning environments.
In addition to being great ways to keep students engaged, researchers have found that video games have real potential as next-generation learning tools. Games use new technologies to incorporate principles crucial to human cognitive learning. As Dr. Jeffrey Taekman, the director of Duke University's Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center noted, "serious games and virtual environments are the future of education." Many companies have realized this potential and are using it to continuously challenge and develop their employees. Global consulting firm Deloitte employs digital games for its Deloitte Leadership Academy, an executive education program it uses to train clients and its own consultants. Users receive virtual badges after completing training courses and "unlock" more complex training courses when basic levels are completed.
An IBM report entitled "Virtual Worlds, Real Leaders" comments "Leadership happens quickly and easily in online games, often by otherwise reserved players, who surprise even themselves with their capabilities." Online games such as World of Warcraft can involve an overriding goal for a team of players. For example, there are a series of raids or missions that make up the journey, each of which requires leadership of player groups of varying sizes. This gives many players the opportunity to "try on" leadership roles. The study asserts that there is no reason to think that the same cannot be done in corporate settings of various sizes, missions and markets.
