Are You Game?

Gamification is one of the interesting concepts I had explored in spring. Kids are often intrigued by interesting games. Most of us grew up playing some kind of games. Which was your favorite? Adults are no exception, gluing themselves to chairs and facing computer screens all day. In layman terms, gamification leverages on the inherent fun-loving nature of human beings to improve engagement and achieve certain behaviors. Behaviors can be desirable or otherwise. Game creators are responsible for designing games for the betterment of humankind.

The spring class 15.571 “Business Strategy and the Role of IT” was taught by Dr. Jeanne Ross, Director, Center for Information Systems Research at MIT. The semester long class project provided the opportunity for my project team to work closely with Fidelity. The aim of the project was to evaluate and analyze the existing level of customer engagement with Fidelity’s online financial tools, and put forward recommendations to improve customer engagement via gamification. My team did extensive research on gamification. One of the literatures we found particularly useful was “Gamification by Design”, where most ideas for the class project and this article should be credited to.

Eventually, my project team presented five recommendations to Fidelity  (Lee, Schlossberg, Seelhof, Teo, & Wong, 2012). Instead of going into the details of the recommendations, I thought it would be interesting to generalize the framework of our recommendations for a wider range of applications. In this article, I attempted to apply gamification concepts to the workplace. The framework consists of five key elements, namely engagement score, onboard, direct, progress, and rewards.

Engagement score

Before the game starts, we need to know exactly how engagement is measured. If the games are to be played over the Internet, some components of the score are virality, duration, frequency, recency, and ratings. Virality indicates the circulation on the Internet (e.g. number of retweets, number of shares, and number of likes) while rating gauges how the players like the game (e.g. number of stars in a movie or book reviews). Duration quantifies the length of visit, frequency measures the number of revisits, and recency determines the last visit. Depending on the intent of the game, components of the score can have different levels of significance. 

What about gaming at the workplace? How engaged are the employers? Engaged employees tend to be more productive, which eventually leads to the success of the company. Employee surveys and feedback can measure the level of engagement. Of course, the right questions must be asked and these questions differ from company to company. Other indicators of engagement can be turnover rate, employee satisfaction, and employee absenteeism.

Onboard

The first minute game experience is crucial. It determines if the player is going to stay, return, and recommend the game to his social circle. Netizens have liked, shared, and invited their friends to play games they enjoyed on Facebook.

At the workplace, the employees’ physical presence is not good enough. The manager must win over their hearts. Get them onboard, emotionally. First impression counts. The word-of-mouth effect is powerful. Like it or not, people will talk about the organization, within or outside. Onboarding starts from day one, or maybe during the first interview.

Direct

Once the player is onboard, the next step is to direct him to his area of interests as quickly as possible. A group of tourists enters an amusement park and they look for signs and maps to direct them.

Employees have different interests and desired career paths. Finding a good fit is the important next step. Mentoring is analogous to directing in the game of work.

Progress

Keeping the player engaged is the most difficult part of the game. The player becomes bored and loses interest if the game is too easy. On the contrary, the player gets frustrated and dreads playing if the game becomes too difficult. The key is to keep the player sufficiently challenged, yet allowing him to advance in the game. Game designers need to master the “flow” between boredom and frustration. Think of the progress bar. Players want to see the bar progress move from 0% to 50% to 100%. Once completed, it’s time to enter the next higher level. Individual and team progress are mutually supportive.

The same is at the workplace. To employees, progression is one of the most important things they constantly look out for, if not the most. It needs to be carefully designed to sustain interest and engagement. Building a strong support network is part of progress, together with directing/mentoring.

Rewards

Rewards are incentives for the continued engagement of gamers. Rewards come in the form of status, access, power and stuff (SAPS). Credit card providers reward customers by upgrading them to different status (e.g. silver, gold, platinum), depending on the number of frequent flyer miles collected for example. High net worth banking clients enjoy privileged access to exclusive venues and events, depending on the amount of assets under management. High performing and established gamers are given the authority to moderate discussions or have some form of control over other gamers. Coffee chains reward loyal customers with free beverages (stuff) for every set of loyalty stickers collected.

While SAPS come with career progression and promotions, monetary means are not the only ways to recognize and reward individuals. A simple “thank you” or gesture does the trick. Rewarding performing teams with a dinner appointment with the CEO can work wonders (i.e. access to senior management and reward with good food/stuff).

Look around. The elements of games are everywhere. Based on the engagement score, adjustments are made to the onboard, direct, progress, and rewards elements. If the gaming effect could be harnessed, there would certainly be more happy and engaged people around, as well as more success stories. Are you game?

My friend and classmate Ming Fai wrote an article on Gamification too. Please check it out!

Thanks very much for reading.

Works Cited

Lee, H., Schlossberg, E., Seelhof, M., Teo, K. S., & Wong, M. F. (2012). Fidelity Engagement and Gamification. MIT.

Zichermann, G., & Cunningham, C. (2011). Gamification by Design. O'Reilly Media, Inc.