Gamification or the art of using games in your business

A management practice

Employees in a company often reveal that the lack of recognition is the main problem they face in the workplace.
Gamification allows them to feel valued because they are rewarded for every action they take (by sharing content on their own social networks, for example).
This practice also allows employees to follow their journey and its evolution in real time, creating an appetite for the game and driving business performance.
And what could be better than turning a constraint into a game? It’s a win-win situation.

Successful gamification?

Be careful, for a gamification campaign to be effective, it is important to respect certain rules:

• Everyone must be involved, from employees to managers.
• Offer non-stigmatizing rewards. Indeed, all surveys on employee motivation show that money, although important, is not the main motivator. Monetary rewards, which tend to encourage individualism, are not necessarily the most appropriate. Whatever type of reward is chosen, one must be skilful enough to ensure that the reward of some does not stigmatize others.
• Full transparency on the objectives and reward system is considered a key success factor.

A practice that also works externally

Gamification can also be used with your customers to stimulate their motivation and engagement.

• The company can create a section on its website “Follow us”. For each retweet and/or like and sharing of content on social networks: you offer a certain number of points.
  These points can then be exchanged for a promo code or a gift card.
• Develop applications/games to make discovering the brand more fun: you could for example develop games on Facebook like a quiz or even a game of 7 mistakes to improve your relationship with your customers. To continue, they will have to share their scores on their accounts via messages that mention by default the name and link of the site with their friends and followers, which will surely encourage other people to play. The goal is to attract new people through games and then turn them into customers.
• Encourage your prospects to explore your website: you could also organize a scavenger hunt that encourages visitors to browse the entire site and/or blog to find specific content, similar to a “Where’s Charlie? A predefined number of winners will be rewarded with a gift card to be used on the website (if a merchant) or on a partner’s website.

We could still cite many examples of application… You will have understood that gamification is a management method and a new mode of internal and external communication with a very strong potential that it is essential to understand in view of current technological developments.