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Question:

Our new workforce management (WFM) solution includes gamification capabilities. How should we use this feature?

Answer:

Gamification can enable employees to earn rewards, recognition, and/or social rank for achieving key performance indicator (KPI)-based goals, helping peers improve performance, successfully completing eLearning activities, adhering to schedules, and much more. Organizations in many industries are leveraging the positive contributions of gamification in many areas of the enterprise, from human resources to risk management. 

Successful gamification programs are based on the fundamental principle that people are motivated by different things. While some employees enjoy competition with their peers, others may prefer to compete only against themselves – seeking to improve their performance day after day or week to week, etc. In order to successfully motivate and engage people, gamification programs must incorporate a wide variety of both competitive and non-competitive challenges, as well as tangible and intangible rewards. Sustained interest and engagement are achieved when new challenges and relevant rewards are introduced on a continuous basis.

Game mechanics, whether completion-oriented or competition-based, are being used creatively to drive and reward desired behaviors, foster collaboration, improve productivity and drive cultural change by aligning performance accountabilities with corporate goals. Gamification solutions are also being used as a method to expose real-time performance data to agents in order to motivate them to make self-directed improvements. 

Growing numbers of WFM, quality management (QM), coaching and performance management applications deliver some level of gamification functionality, in addition to stand-alone gamification applications. Gamification solutions are intended to make work a little more fun, and therefore engaging, without detracting from the job at hand.