Currently we are living in an environment known as VUCA, which stands for of Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. This means that the knowledge we acquire will never be enough. Therefore, we need to constantly be learning and updating our knowledge related to any subject, especially of those subjects related to our work.
This situation is clear in the workplace: current knowledge of our employees will become obsolete in a very short period of time, and we must encourage them to always be in learning mode, to constantly acquire new skills and abilities.
In this post we explain how to contribute to team training thanks to the technique of gamification, which introduces games into labor organizations.
Gamification includes leisure activities in contexts that are not usually playful. Thanks to playful mechanisms, a complex material is transformed into specific actions, to which we add a goal or reward that encourages personal and group improvement.
It is a way to encourage ongoing training for our employees from the HR department.
All training plans must follow a structure to achieve the stated objectives within the organization. In case you want to include a gamification strategy, you must bear in mind the following six steps that will help you address your "gamified" training plan:
Knowing what elements we should empower in each person is key, since it's important to carry out an individualized training that is relevant to each employee and adds value to the whole organization at the same time.
We must raise specific learning objectives, based on the shortcomings that we have identified in the evaluation of needs. It is important to set goals and timings to meet them. Each goal will be associated with a number of actions that we will define.
When implementing our project, we will use online tools: platforms that allow us to include games and playful elements that will provide our employees with feedback and rewards. We must also decide which reward elements we'll associate with every action that we defined in the previous phase .
Communicating to our employees the importance of participating in training will motivate them and encourage them to join the project. Also, since it is not a common training, we have to emphasize how to use the tools and explain the benefits associated with the fact of including gamification in our training plan.
During the development of the training and once it finishes, we need to collect performance information of every employee, in order to recognize both positive traits and areas to improve. From there we can move forward by adjusting the actions of each training plan, adapting them more and more to the needs of each employee.
In order to constantly improve training activities we want to develop in the future, we need to collect feedback from our employees: what worked and what didn't, what they think serves them, what has helped them more or less, etc. This feedback will help us to adjust our "gamified" training plan or to identify what could have failed, if the general opinion after the first program hasn't been positive.
Among the most important benefits derived from gamification are:
Actions do not need to be done by each individual, they may be approached in teams. Thus, we're promoting unity and cohesion to achieve the objectives together. If "gamified" training is designed to perform team activities, cohesion and camaraderie is promoted among employees.
Deloitte: Leadership Academy
One of the success stories of a company that has incorporated gamification into their employee training program is Deloitte. In Deloitte, they created the Leadership Academy program, through which they made interactive content training available, including instructional videos, to make the training activities more attractive and motivating.
Also, they offered the possibility for each employee to customize their own training plans to suit their needs. Once they were overcoming their "missions", they could share their achievements on their personal social networks.
This program also had a competitive element: a general league table, in which the best "gamers" were displayed within the entire organization
Accenture: Accenture Land
Accenture has another success story, with its training plan called Accenture Land: employees must build their own cities and get prizes if they answer questions raised about consulting .
In addition, while playing, they have access to certain benefits that they can enjoy for being part of Accenture. Other gamification mechanisms included in the program were "Your Wellbeing" (health program) or the "Eco Challenge" (promotion of environmental commitment).
Conclusion
Definitely, incorporate gamification into a training plan brings benefits to our employees and therefore to our company. For this reason, gamification is definitely a key trend within HR departments, because this strategy adapts talent management to the digital and interactive environment where the most innovative organizations are today.
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