Because the professional landscape has shifted over the years, many of today’s top CEOs and managers are looking for ways to create a human-centric workplace and to improve employee engagement. There are countless employee engagement best practices and strategies, but finding those that truly work for your organization isn’t always easy. No longer do old, stuffy business practices resonate with modern employees.
That’s because workplaces are recognizing that they need to shift their culture towards a human-centric environment to retain talent and stay competitive. According to Gartner, “employees in human-centric work environments are 3.8 times more likely to be high performing.” Today’s employees care about their salaries, but they also care about the culture they are part of.
Intranet gamification can be part of the solution.
Intranet gamification motivates employees and gives immediate recognition for a job well done. At its heart, intranet gamification takes elements found in gameplay (sports, video games, etc.) and applies them into business practices to increase engagement and participation. This adds playful competition into the workday and motivates employees to go the extra mile. This strategy uses ideas and concepts that just about everyone can relate to … and quite simply, it works.
How to Motivate Employees with Intranet Gamification — 5 Huge Benefits
Once you see the pyschology of gamification in action, it’s clear how beneficial it can be as a motivator for increasing employee engagement. In fact, when recognition is part of the workplace, employees are 2.2 times more likely to go above and beyond. It can take time to find intranet gamification strategies that work for you and your staff, but once you do, you can expect your company to benefit. Here’s how:
1. Streamlined Problem-Solving
The ability to solve problems in an efficient manner can often mean the difference between a company that succeeds and one that does not. Whether it’s meeting customers’ needs, working out a bug, or developing a new product, today’s businesses are constantly finding themselves up against issues that can seem impossible to overcome. Intranet gamification gives employees the incentive they need to find solutions to problems.
2. Intellectual Stimulation
There’s a reason why so many people relate to playing games, and intellectual stimulation is a huge allure. You need to keep your mind sharp when doing work and completing tasks, which is where gamification comes into play. If you can make any type of work feel more like a game, people will want to win the challenge—and you’ll see an uptick in employee engagement and performance.
3. Easier Onboarding
You may not realize the many ways you can apply intranet gamification into your business. Sure, it can be used to increase sales and to get your teams to take that security test quicker, but it can also be a useful tool for onboarding new employees. Intranet training can be a mundane process. Turning it into a game makes training not only more effective, but far more tolerable to power through those intro videos. If you’ve experienced difficulty with onboarding new employees, you may want to give gamification a try.
4. Stronger Connection Between Employees
Collaboration is an essential aspect of modern day business, but it won’t work if people don’t understand the value they gain. Team-based gamification is one of the best collaboration tools to foster stronger relationships between employees, because people form relationships through team building. The result is a more productive, tight-knit workforce.
5. Higher Profits
There’s no growth without sales. Intranet gamification is an excellent tool to tap into the potential of a sales team and build momentum. Turn your entire pipeline into a challenge and reward reps who accumulate the most qualified leads.
How to Motivate Employees with Axero’s Intranet Gamification Features
Our platform, Axero, is a true employee experience platform designed for people. And, spoiler alert! Intranet gamification is built in to provide you with a number of tools that help improve employee engagement, motivate employees, and streamline problem-solving. You have many options to set up recognition programs and challenges—all made to unify teams and sets clear goals for your reps to achieve.
Here’s a deeper look at how Axero can be used as a tool for intranet gamification.
- You can define and easily edit Axero’s points and badge system, assigning specific rewards for activities, such as creating blog posts, forum topics, photo comments, and more.
- Activities can be given priority, which lets members know which challenge carries the most weight in terms of points and badges.
- As users begin to accumulate points and badges, they’ll gain new rankings, such as “seasoned member,” “senior member” and “pro”—all of which can be customized to fit your brand.
- Every detail can be customized so that your intranet gamification system fits perfectly into your organization.
Key Tips for Incorporating Intranet Gamification into the Workday
For intranet gamification to be effective, you need a plan in place. Think through how you want to use it and what goals you want to achieve. To help you get started, here’s a couple tips about how to implement gamification into the workday:
1. Identify an “Endgame”
Before you start, let’s identify what goals you want to accomplish through intarnet gamification. Most managers turn to gamification to strengthen productivity and employee motivation, but if you don’t set tangible goals, you won’t be able to know how effective it is.
2. Focus on Behavioral Changes
If there’s one factor that makes intranet gamification a truly powerful tool, it’s the ability to uplift an employee’s behavior to better suit your collaborative organization. Some employees tend to isolate themselves and prefer to work alone, for example. Managers hoping to make these individuals more open to team collaboration can implement gamification strategies … and it often turns out to be an effective way to facilitate positive change.
3. Spot Areas that Lack Attention
One way to use gamification is to to increase interest in areas that are lacking. As it goes with life, there’s always going to be tasks that are less exciting than others. Gamifying these responsibilities can be a great way to add a little spark and ensure that they get completed.
4. Give Context
Get everyone on board. Before launching new intranet gamification initiatives, fill your teams in! Explain how staff can earn points for carrying-out specific tasks and walk through why they should care. It’s also best practice to lead by example. Set up your account beforehand to show off badges and special challenges.
5. Use Gamification for Onboarding New Employees
Onboarding new hires can be a lot—for both the new employee and your team. Use intranet gamification to expedite the entire process. Newbies can receive points every time they complete a required reading or special badges when they complete significant portions of their onboarding materials. There are many ways to use gamification for onboarding, so get creative!
6. Offer Thoughtful Rewards
For times when you plan to give out physical rewards, be mindful about what everyone’s actually interested in. Take into consideration who your people are and what they actually want. This makes your employees feel valued and cared for, which will improve employee engagement even more.
In Conclusion
Intranet gamification offers so many opportunities for organizations to elevate their employee engagement strategy …and to boost productivity and team relationships. Add gamification into your business’s social community, and watch camaraderie increase.
