As workplaces continue to evolve with modern times, many employers now carry out hiring, onboarding, and training processes online. One of the most notable developments in the HR space is gamification, which has grown hugely in recent years.
With 70% of employees agreeing that gamification makes them more motivated at work and 58% of HR professionals believing that it can improve employee engagement, gamification in HR is definitely on the books for organizations looking to step up their workforce this year.
Many HR teams these days feel the need to think outside the box, as traditional tools can no longer yield the desired results. In the modern-day workplace, where processes must evolve with tech, adding gamification to HR processes not only makes them more engaging, but it also helps employees stay motivated and even retain new knowledge more easily.
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What is gamification in HR?
Gamification uses game mechanics such as points, levels, challenges, badges, leaderboards, and rewards. In the context of human resource management, these features make the onboarding and development processes more interesting for employees.
Many businesses are now adopting gamification in their HR processes since there’s a range of tools available that make implementation much less complicated. By gamifying what can typically be considered mundane workplace activities, employees are more likely to be motivated to participate with their full attention.
This works particularly well now that remote and hybrid work setups are common. Maintaining strong engagement has always been a challenge for HR teams, but the introduction of gamification has helped businesses adapt to modern workers and develop solutions that work for all age groups.
Key benefits of gamification in HR
There are many benefits to gamifying HR processes for both the business and its employees.
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Higher engagement
Employees are more likely to get involved and pay attention when routine tasks are turned into interactive experiences. If they can earn points and compete against their colleagues to get to the top of a leaderboard, there’s bound to be more engagement and motivation. -
Better learning retention
Instead of expecting employees to read large chunks of text, breaking them up into visual scenarios, interactive quizzes, and point-based challenges makes loads of information easy to understand and remember. This method also helps with the retention of new knowledge in the long term. -
Improved performance tracking
Gamification gives every employee more control over their performance by making it more personal to them. Being able to go back to training sessions, see how far they’ve come, and build their score makes it easy to spot areas for improvement and fix them. From an HR point of view, this helps ensure that all employees do their training to with consistency, contributing towards an engaged team and reducing staff turnover. -
Enhanced employee experience
Although HR processes are necessary, they can feel tedious. Adding interactive elements and rewards to tasks turns them into games, which makes them more fun and helps keep learners’ focus. Finding new ways to liven up compulsory tasks can significantly contribute to an employee’s long-term job satisfaction. -
Boosted productivity & goal alignment
The introduction of challenges that help users earn points and work towards higher levels is a great way to boost productivity. The rules of the game push players to be consistent, which is a great way to get employees to work towards their goals.
5 ways to use gamification in HR
There are several ways to incorporate gamification in your HR strategies. But the best ones are from real-life examples of how businesses have used gamification in fun and creative ways to make improvements to their HR processes.
Gamified employee onboarding
When a new employee joins a business, their first few days are normally a bit of an information overload and can be an overwhelming experience. Gamification can help new employees get used to the work process and settle into their role quickly.
Designing an interactive onboarding journey with progress tracking and achievement badges creates engagement from day one and gives the employee clearer goals to work towards. It’s easier to celebrate the small wins and stay motivated when the process is broken down into smaller parts and you can see when each one is done.
Marriott is a good example of a well-known company that uses gamification to help onboard its new employees. They have developed a game in which users design and run their own hotel, earning points for every satisfied customer during customer service simulations.
Learning & development challenges
Online training courses are not for everyone, and some employees struggle to retain information if it entails self-teaching. In this case, gamification can work really well because it makes training more fun and interactive, encouraging people to keep learning.
An effective way to make the course more effective is to break it down into microlearning modules with different levels, points, and quizzes. A company that has done this well is Deloitte – they use an online platform that uses a quiz format to get teams to work together to find answers.
This method makes users feel that they’ve accomplished something after finishing each section and lets them quickly find any areas where they need more support.
Performance & productivity leaderboards
A little friendly competition can go a long way and push employees to do their best. Being able to see the progress of colleagues in real time and compete to get to the top of the leaderboard encourages everyone to try their best.
Giving employees physical rewards or introducing initiatives, such as recognition programs, is a great way to show them that their successes are worth celebrating. This builds a strong company culture that helps people grow and gives more help to people who need it.
Topps Tiles uses an online learning platform with a point-based system to produce a leaderboard and give each participant personalized advice based on their answers. It’s been shown to increase logins and has even seen voluntary training material being accessed.
Wellness & engagement apps
From an HR point of view, it’s their job to make sure that employees feel supported in their roles and can maintain a good work-life balance. Taking care of employees’ health is a win-win situation because it not only shows care but also boosts morale.
There are various services that businesses can sign up for for the benefit of their employees. The Headspace app is a good example, with their gamified programs that help users be more consistent in practicing wellness activities, such as yoga and meditation, including improving the quality of sleep.
Another option is to focus on physical health, which is especially good for people who work at a desk all day. Step-count challenges, wellbeing games, and healthy habit streaks are some examples of initiatives that can motivate employees and make them feel that they’re part of a community at work.
Recruitment games or simulations
To make the hiring process more interactive and candidate-friendly, many HR teams are introducing gamification into their recruitment. Using scenario-based assessments or gamified tests to check skills is a good way to gauge a candidate’s proficiency in specific skills while making the process more fun for them.
Going back to 2004, before most businesses even knew what gamification was, Google was ahead of the game and designed what would become a famous billboard, which displayed a challenging riddle to attract new engineers to their team, a powerful hiring strategy that has people talking to this day.
The next wave of HR gamification
As gamification continues to be adopted by more businesses, the options available to HR teams will only keep expanding. Here are some of the ways that gamification technologies are expected to evolve in the near future:
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AI-driven personalization
Instead of giving everyone the same challenges, personalization based on skill gaps or progress makes sure that everyone gets tailored learning to improve their weaker areas and learn new skills. -
VR/AR training
Virtual reality and augmented reality are continuously advancing and are expected to soon help create realistic learning environments for complicated roles. Being able to practice a scenario virtually will better prepare new employees for real-life situations they’ll eventually face. -
Behavioral psychology insights
Employees will stay interested for longer if processes focus more on behavioral science and intrinsic motivation instead of just rewards. HR programs designed with emotions in mind can instinctively make learners feel more interested in the topics and connected to the process. -
Mobile-first platforms
Mobile devices have long been popular among modern workers, and now that many employees can work from anywhere, newer HR gamification tools will likely be made for smaller devices to improve user access and experience. -
Social & collaborative gamification
To take leaderboards to the next level, gamification in HR will soon likely incorporate team quests, collective goals, and shared achievements that bring members together and encourage teamwork. -
Integration with performance tools
Gamification needs to seamlessly integrate with human resource information systems (HRIS), learning management systems (LMS), and productivity software to monitor progress alongside an employee’s work goals.
A gamified future
Gamification is more than just a trend – it’s a strategic HR tool that has transformed the way businesses and employees carry out traditional processes.
Now that there are various approaches that can be taken when looking to introduce gamification into HR processes, there are bound to be more options for all business types.
The trick is to start small by gamifying a singular HR workflow and measuring the impact. By monitoring responses and getting feedback from employees, businesses can gradually introduce more gamified processes and truly modernize their approach.