More and more top firms are using gamification methods in their trainings. The goal is simple: to improve the results from trainings and engage employees.
Boots, one of the UK’s leading pharmacy-based and beauty led retailers collaborated with Mind Click to reinvigorate their product knowledge e-learning with gamification, the company announced. Utilizing Mind Click’s multi-device, Articulate Storyline game engine, Boots increased their user reach by 200 percent and doubled in completion rates.
Mind Click transformed what was historically a standard 20 minute e-learning module into a bespoke gamified solution. The goal – to create something innovative and different to encourage excitement from their learners. The game effectively lent itself to their stores’ naturally competitive environment and staff adopted internal store leader boards to keep the game scores which encouraged healthy competition and collaboration.
“Gamification brought an element of fun that was lacking in our previous L&D offer. We wanted people to be excited about the breadth of new products at Christmas and feel differently about the learning we offered around those products, and the game really did that”, says Steven, Retail Learning Academy Manager at Boots.
“The game has really changed the way people feel about training and L&D in our stores. There was almost a palpable sense of excitement. We were surprised with how cost effective a unique bespoke gamification solution was with Mind Click”. The implementation of the learning game has seen a drastic impact on the organization. Increasing their users by 200% from the previous year rising from 15,000 in 2014 to over 45,000 by Christmas 2015. Additionally the powerful influence has impacted completion rates, causing a rise by 50% from the previous year.
Gamification for all
Badgeville announced three new Application Connectors that extend its behavior motivation and rewards platform across three more of the most popular customer support, collaboration and e-learning platforms: Zendesk, IBM Connections and Skillsoft. The new connectors enable enterprise customers to motivate and gain greater visibility into user behavior in these platforms and expand reward opportunities to drive improved performance.
Numerous studies have shown that intrinsic motivators, like peer recognition and reputation attainment, are far more effective at incentivizing performance than extrinsic motivators, such as financial compensation. But, measuring and delivering these kinds of “soft” motivators is much more difficult, the company notes.
In his groundbreaking TEDTalk, motivational researcher Daniel Pink punctuated his argument for the power of intrinsic motivation, asserting, “The secret to high performance isn’t rewards and punishments, but that unseen intrinsic drive—the drive to do things for their own sake. The drive to do things because they matter.”
By tightly integrating Badgeville’s platform across enterprise applications, companies can guide and motivate performance and deliver rewards inside the applications employees use every day, the company notes.
The newest connectors add to the growing roster of customer and employee success applications like Jive, SharePoint, Yammer, Lithium, Office 365, WordPress and Salesforce. Launched in December, the new Zendesk, IBM and Skillsoft connectors enable companies to integrate gamification into the three companies platforms like Zendesk’s customer support platform to measure, motivate and reward both internal support staff and customer community members.
Also IBM Connections business social network platform to track, encourage and recognize team engagement, collaboration, innovation and productivity. And finally Skillsoft e-learning programs to incentivize training participation, build expertise, understand how learning impacts business functions, such as sales, productivity, etc., and foster employee reputation cultivation.
Image credit: Flickr (CC) / Breyten Ernsting