The role gamification plays in increasing employee engagement

Imagine you are a pirate that has been shipwrecked on a desert island.  Your mission is to complete tasks in exchange for treasure. Your prize? A week’s worth of coffee, café vouchers, or even a day off… back home on land, of course.

The island exists solely in a gamified mobile application, where as an employee you have the ability to control a pirate avatar and accept challenges to earn points and progress through stages of a map. The virtual world is reflective of actual activities within the workplace, which when completed are rewarded with a real-life prize.

This fictional quest is now a reality thanks to an innovative solution from Oracle Consulting Digital Experience (OCDX), which allows organisations the chance to boost employee efficiency with incentives for going the extra mile.

What is gamification?

The process refers to the application of game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts, typically including points, badges and leaderboards.

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But there’s more to it than that, says Michal Dorosz, a Senior Experience Designer for OCDX: “Gamification is about finding fun, game-like aspects and using them to create an environment that moves people towards an objective.”

“It is a framework that aims to add a layer of behaviour-tracking and accomplishment to otherwise mundane experiences,” Dorosz continues, “Gamification adds measures for competition, milestones for solitary pursuits and builds player profiles that give a richer context to social interactions.”

In the Pirates Quest use-case, an application with gamification elements is designed to encourage hard work among staff by helping users to better navigate chores and achieve meaningful outcomes for completing them. 

The idea is to enhance user-experience and prolonged use of the application, so implementing the gamified element was key in making the platform exciting and likely to be consistently used with the highest possible engagement.

The app helps new employees learn what is expected of them and ensure they are on the right track, whilst giving more experienced staff the intrinsic motivation to continue as an employee. Gamification helps users track their personal growth and progress with measurable goals, by recording completed tasks and achievements and by also rewarding positive behaviour.

“One of the fundamentals of successful co-operation is feedback.” Dorosz explains. “By using a proper gamification solution we changed the way employees rate their job, while making it more fun and rewarding. The goal is to increase engagement and create a product that will ultimately influence people’s habits.”

A fun and interactive user experience

Each player is assigned a profile, with the chance to move up and down the ranks depending on participation.

As the pirates move around the map, they can accept and complete tasks proposed by colleagues, or assign them to others. This can include unpopular errands, such as refilling the printer tray. The employee who takes on the challenge earns points, which can either be awarded to others in return for completing another job, or saved and spent on prizes.

The hard work of individuals in big companies often goes unnoticed, so the app is a way of ensuring every employee who excels in their responsibilities is praised – not only by their employer, but more importantly by their peers.

“The gamification framework helps to find what motivates users and to leverage this. Different sets of intrinsic motivations can influence actions and transform a dull task into an engaging game; both as an individual, or with peers.” Dorosz concludes. “In many cases, recognition doesn’t require a physical prize, but rather a visible form of appreciation. In Pirates Quest, users earn their rank and badges to build status amongst the crew and earn in-app privileges.

This creative process builds community spirit and encourages healthy competition within the workplace, while ensuring that all tasks are completed.

What makes Pirates Quest a success?

Key benefits:

• Employees are recognised for hard work
• Employees are given an incentive to complete unpopular workplace tasks
• Colleagues can be rewarded for going the extra mile
• Useful for organisations to ensure jobs are completed
• Employees feel like part of a community whilst also having fun
• The game element increases and sustains participation

This innovative solution has already been rolled out to one Oracle Consulting customer, and there is unlimited opportunity for the solution to be recreated based around a different theme to suit organisational preferences.

Want to know more?

If you’d like to learn more about gamification, Michal Dorosz will be speaking at the Mobile UX London event on the 21 November 2019. You can sign up for tickets here and get 30% off when you use the code ORACLE30.

To find out how Digital Experience can benefit your business, please contact your Oracle sales representative.

Alternatively, you can contact us directly:

Mobile UX London Conference: 21 November 2019

On 21 November, we will be holding our annual conference, exploring the evolution of and future of UX Design.

This year’s conference themes include:

• Mixed, Virtual and Augmented Reality
• Designing for Voice
• Artificial Intelligence and 5G
• UX Design principles
  
  

Throughout the day there will be over 15 talks, 4 masterclasses and 6 workshops to choose from.