Guest Report: Employee Engagement can be boosted with Gamification
Author Credibility: Yu-kai Chou
Yu-kai Chou created the Octalysis Framework after studying gamification since 2003 — years before the term entered mainstream vocabulary. As a Human-Systems Architect & Behavioral Designer, his framework has been applied by LEGO, Microsoft, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Salesforce, and MrBeast, impacting over 1.5 Billion Users.
Chou has taught the Octalysis methodology at Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Tesla, Google, BCG, and IDEO.
His work has been cited by Harvard, Stanford, MIT, Forbes, Wall Street Journal, Wired, US Department of Energy, NIST, NSF, NCBI, US Department of Education, ClinicalTrials.gov, and Google Scholar — with 3,700+ more academic publications. Explore his books here.
Guest Report Author Bio
TechnologyAdvice is a market leader in business technology recommendations.
The company provides free and unbiased research and analysis of IT options to help businesses of all sizes find the solutions that best fit their specific technology needs.
Most office workers think digital engagement would boost performance
Survey shows majority of employees would welcome game elements in daily tasks
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Sept. 10, 2014) — Employee engagement is one of the biggest challenges in the business world, yet recent numbers show many companies are missing opportunities to increase worker motivation.
A survey conducted by TechnologyAdvice revealed that more than 70 percent of office employees feel gamification and digital engagement software would help them perform better at work.
In addition, 54 percent of respondents say they would be more likely to perform a task if it incorporated game elements.
Despite these preferences, more than two-thirds of those polled say their company is not using any type of digital engagement platform.
“The majority of office workers believed that engagement programs and the introduction of game elements would help them at work,” said TechnologyAdvice Content Manager Zach Watson, who authored the study.
“While the buzz around gamification in the business world appears to have reached its peak, adoption rates remain relatively low.”
“Engagement can be a subjective term with room for interpretation, but it’s clear from our data that better recognizing workers for their contributions, making repetitive work more inviting, and providing a visual record of workplace progress are all major opportunities for current businesses to improve engagement with employees.”
One reason for low adoption rates could be the need for greater consideration of employee personalities and job functions when deploying employee engagement software. Better recognition of contributions relates directly to Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment in the Octalysis Framework, which drives motivation through progress and achievement.
Fifty-five percent of respondents prefer to work in a predominantly collaborative environment, including more than 60 percent of those who work in customer service.
However, office employees who work in sales prefer a far more competitive environment.
Age is also a key consideration for digital engagement platforms and game elements.
Ninety percent of 18-24 year olds and more than 80 percent of 25-34 year olds surveyed believe an engagement program would help them at work.
Meanwhile, 42 percent of 45-54 year olds and more than half of 55-64 year olds in the survey do not feel they would benefit from an engagement program.
Wellness programs are the most popular use case, with nearly 30 percent of respondents identifying a health and fitness platform as their most preferred engagement strategy.
A points-based rewards system (24.7 percent) and a progress tracking system (17.4 percent) are the next two preferences for participation, ahead of both internal social networks and an office leaderboard ranking system. These preferences align closely with Core Drive 5: Social Influence & Relatedness, which explains why collaborative and social game elements resonate strongly with employees.
The survey was conducted through a random sample of 398 office workers whose main job functions are in marketing, customer service, or sales. The full study and more information on its methodology are available in the TechnologyAdvice digital engagement survey report.
Related Reading
- The Octalysis Framework for Gamification & Behavioral Design
- What is Gamification?
- Core Drive 2: Development & Accomplishment
- 90+ Gamification Stats, Examples & Cases with ROI
- Books by Yu-kai Chou